PATNA/NEW DELHI, 28 February 2005 — After nine years in the wilderness, the Congress party yesterday stormed back to power in Haryana with a historic win, routing Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala who promptly resigned. However, results showed its national allies lost major ground in Bihar and Jharkhand amid fractured verdicts.
Five-and-a-half years of Chautala rule came to a humiliating end as the Congress posted its best showing since Haryana’s formation in 1996, sweeping 67 seats on the strength of a wave against the ruling Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).
Chautala’s INLD couldn’t even reach double figures. It won merely nine seats in an assembly of 90 members, far less than the 47 it had in the outgoing house, faring poorly even in its traditional Jat strongholds. It was a personal humiliation for Chautala, who lost at Narwana to young state Congress working president Randeep Singh Surjewala. He managed to win from Rori, the other seat he contested. All his ministers lost too.
As feared, perhaps, by Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and Railway Minister Lalu Yadav and his wife Chief Minister Rabri Devi, Ram Vilas Paswan has emerged as the kingmaker in Bihar, following the failure of any single party to get a clear majority.
Though the RJD failed to have the clear majority still the largest single party. It also secured victory for most of its prominent candidates which include, Rabri, who defeated her nearest rival Rajiv Ranjan of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Paswan by a huge margin of over 27,000 votes. In the fractured verdict, the RJD got 80 seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal (United) alliance secured 90 seats and the LJP 29 seats to play a “kingmaker’s” role in a house of 243.
The Congress got a meager 11 seats and even failed to see the victory of its state unit chief, Ram Jatan Sinha who lost by a huge margin from Patna Central seat.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) got five seats, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Lenin) four, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) got three seats each. A few other smaller groups and independents have won 34 seats in which 19 are those who are strongly opposed to the BJP-led alliance.
Down but not out, Maverick Lalu refuses to give up. “My party, the RJD is the single largest party and with our prepoll allies we have 92 seats,” he told reporters.
“I will not give up and our party will stake claim to form government,” said Lalu.
Taking a dig at the claims of the BJP-led alliance, the veteran Bihar politician thundered: “Your dreams of coming to power in Bihar will remain a dream.”
However despite Lalu’s claim one thing is clear that the key to power is in the hands of Paswan and the RJD would need his party’s support to form the government. The RJD have already started making overtures to him and has sought Paswan’s help in forming the government.
But Paswan has refused to support Lalu’s party. He said: “LJP will neither seek nor extend support for formation of a government led by either the RJD or the BJP-JD (U) combine.
But a seemingly more confident BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) vowed to stake claim in neighboring Jharkhand today. The ruling BJP-led coalition in Jharkhand could not retain its majority in the 81-member house, but was brimming with optimism as it was less than half a dozen seats away from the magic number of 41.
The outcome was a blow to the Congress-Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) alliance that had shrugged off the RJD during the seat-sharing talks. It had hoped to sweep the elections on the basis of its parliamentary performance last year. The Congress-JMM got just 26 seats. The RJD, which had contested 51 seats, took seven while smaller groups bagged 12 — enough to influence the power games.
In New Delhi, senior Congress leader Ambika Soni said efforts would be made to form secular governments in Bihar and Jharkhand, keeping out the BJP and its allies. Analysts said keeping the BJP and its allies at bay would test the political skills of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who has managed to keep fractious allies in the federal coalition reasonably content.
Political commentator Neerja Chowdhury said the Congress’s poor showing was paradoxically good for the federal coalition and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“Had the Congress done well, it would have made the smaller coalition allies insecure and panicky that the revival of the Congress was at their cost,” she said.
“The poll results also show the revival of the Hindu nationalists and their allies, not enough to threaten the Congress-led coalition but enough to warn them that if given the chance, the BJP and its allies can make a comeback.”
