BY MOHINDER SINGH

Instead of calling the poll results of all the three state assemblies – Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh – unexpected, expected or mixed, I would prefer to call them strange as some of them were expected, some unexpected, and some mixed.

Let me begin with Haryana where the elections were not due to be held in October 2009 but in March 2010. The ruling Congress Party in Haryana headed by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda decided to advance the assembly poll by seven months to take advantage of its imaginary enhanced popularity based on the thinking that since the Haryana Congress Party had won nine out of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the parliamentary elections held in May 2009, it could proportionately win 80 assembly seats out of the total 90 seats. It was an exaggerated and wrong estimate of the Congress Party. The people vote for the Lok Sabha and for the state Assembly on different considerations and under different circumstances.        Moreover, six months have passed since the Parliamentary polls and the Haryana government has not done anything remarkable to enhance or maintain the same previous popularity. It is amazing that the Congress Party Chief Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also approved the political gamble in Haryana. I had editorially commented that advancing the state assembly election was unconstitutional and illegal when the state government was smoothly being run as per the Constitution and was not facing any unstability. My arguments against the advancing of the polls don’t need any repetition now.

The Haryana Congress Party has failed to take any socalled advanatage of its overwhelming victory in the Parliamentary poll. Instead of winning more assembly seats, as the Congress had imagined, the Haryana Congress has lost 27 seats than what it had won in the previous assembly. Now it has humiliatingly won only 40 seats as against 67 in the previous assembly. It has miserably failed to win even simple majority of 46 in the House of 90. In the previous House which the Congress itself got dissolved with the hope of winning more seats, Congress had overwhelming majority with 67 seats. Now to form a government, the Congress has to beg the support of six independent members of the assembly. What a humilitation! If the Assembly was not dissolved before its due time, the Hooda Government would have amicably continued to remain in office for seven more months without any humiliation.

Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) headed by a former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala did not win a single Lok Sabha seat in May 2009 but surprisingly it has captured 31 assembly seats. The BJP also did not win even one Lok Sabha seat in May 2009 but has now managed to win four assembly seats. Another new political group “Haryana Janhit Congress” founded by a former Haryana Chief Minister, Bhajan Lal, had won one Lok Sabha seat in May 2009 and has now managed to win six assembly seats. When the state assembly elections were held in Haryana in 2005, Bhupider Singh Hooda formed the government on its own strength of 67 MLAs and was, therefore, not asked by the State Governor to prove its majority on the floor of the Assembly within a week. But now Hooda has been asked by the State Governor to prove its majority within one week in the Assembly. Another uncalled for but self-invited humiliation!

The erstwhile NDA government headed by Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee in 2004 had also advanced the holding of the Parliamentary poll by six months from September 2004 to April 2004 to take advantage of the non-existing “India Shining”. Then also, I had editorially commented that the people at large don’t like and relish the advancing of polls at public cost and will give their hostile response through the ballot boxes. And that turned out to be a big political gamble and the NDA lost its ‘shine’.

What has happened in Maharashtra is not much unexpected. But it is very much unexpected for the BJP and the Shiv Sena combine. Shiv Sena Supremo Bal Thackeray was hoping against hopes that Shiv Sena would win more seats than the BJP and his son Udhay Thackeray would become the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

Shiv Sena, coming 4th, could win only 44 seats – two less than 46 won by the BJP. The newest party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena headed by Raj Thackeray has won 13 seats in its first attempt. Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray seems to be very much upset and angry with everybody, including God. Congress Party with 82 seats has emerged as the single largest party and its ally NCP has pocketed 62 seats in the 288-member House. It is for the first time that Congress party has won more seats than the NCP.

Both Ashok Chavan and Bhupinder Hooda were expected to be retained in Maharashtra and Haryana respectively but they both were not elected as assembly party leaders. They were selected by the Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi as is the Congress Style and tradition.

One common feature which distinctly emerged from the elections is that the Congress Party won in all the three states and all the three Chief Ministers- Ashok Chavan, 51, (Maharashtra), Bhupinder S Hooda, 62, (Haryana) and Dorjee Khandu, 54, (Arunachal Pradesh) have been retained as Chief Ministers for the consecutive second term.

Dorjee Khandu led Congress Party to a two thirds majority in the Arunachal Pradesh assembly elections where 81 percent people voted.