NEW DELHI/HISAR: In a bruising electoral blow, India’s ruling Congress Monday lost the deposit in the Hisar Lok Sabha by-election in Haryana, where Anna Hazare campaigned against it, and was also defeated in the three assembly by-polls in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana.
It was a sorry nought for the Congress, which rules in all the states barring Bihar. And a moment to savour for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with three of the candidates it backed winning their Oct 13 elections.
In Hisar, the Haryana Janhit Congress’ (HJC) Kuldeep Singh Bishnoi won with 355,541 votes while Ajay Chautala of the Indian National Lok Dal was 5,923 votes behind. Three-time Congress MP Jai Parkash finished a poor third with 149,785 votes and forfeited his security deposit.
In Maharashtra’s Khadakwasla assembly, the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance lost to the BJP-Shiv Sena combine. In Andhra Pradesh’s Telangana region, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) bagged Banswada. In Bihar, the ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) retained Darounda.
Defeat is always “sad”, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in the national capital. “We shall have to analyse why we have lost.”
The Anna factor was also under debate.
The Hisar seat, which fell vacant in June after three-time chief minister Bhajan Lal died, was the first time that Team Anna had actively entered the electoral fray.
But Bishnoi, Bhajan Lal’s son who had welcomed the initiative, said he owed nothing to the anti-corruption crusader.”I attribute it only to my father and the (alliance with) BJP,” Bishnoi told reporters in Hisar.
The Congress also underplayed the Anna factor that had propelled Hisar on the national consciousness. Jai Parkash, who had come third in the last election as well though he had managed 2.04 lakh votes, denied that Hazare had anything to do with the result. “The caste factor undid me,” he said.
Congress general secretary B.K. Hari Prasad added that Jai Parkash lost his deposit because of “sympathy for Kuldeep’s father Bhajan Lal and the development work done by the former chief minister”.
“Team Anna is shining on borrowed feather,” Hari Prasad told IANS.(IANS)
