24 pc vote rise propels BJP to maiden victory in Haryana

The Baharatiya Janata Party has propelled to power in Haryana by a dramatic surge in vote share that saw its tally zooming from 4 to 47 in the 90-member House in the backdrop of a Modi wave.

With a 24 per cent rise in its vote share, BJP on its own is all set to form the government for the first time in the state in which it was a fringe player so far.

BJP's vote share rocketed to 33.2 per cent from a meagre 9.05 per cent in the last Assembly polls in 2009, bringing a dramatic victory for the saffron party. It had been earlier playing second fiddle to the regional parties in Haryana, including Indian National Lok Dal that has now finished second.

The Modi wave crumbled the bastions of Congress, which was in power for the last 10 years with Sonia Gandhi-led party's vote percentage dropping from 35.12 per cent to 20.6 per cent in this election.

BJP's tally of seats rose sharply from just 4 in 2009 to 47 in 2014 due to the increase of almost 24 per cent vote share as more than 41 lakh of the electorate voted for it.

Complete coverage: Battle for Haryana

The outcome was virtually a mirror image of the Lok Sabha elections held in April-May which had seen BJP capturing seven of the 10 parliamentary seats in the state, leaving two for INLD and one to Congress.

In fact, Congress, which had won 9 Lok Sabha seats in 2009, could win only Rohtak -- the constituency of outgoing Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda's son Dipender Hooda.

INLD has yet again emerged as the main opposition party in the Assembly by securing 19 seats this time with 24.1 per cent vote share, around 2.5 per cent less than last time which had brought in an additional 12 seats for it in 2009.

The vote share and number of seats won by the Independent candidates have also fallen down in this election with only 5 of them winning this time as compared to 7 such winners in the last polls. The vote share of Independent candidates has also come down from 13.6 per cent to 10.6 per cent.

BJP's former ally and Kuldeep Bishnoi-led Haryana Janhit Congress also saw a fall in its fortunes as it could manage to win only two seats against the six won by it in the last election.

Its vote share percentage has also gone down from 7.68 per cent in 2009 to 3.6 per cent in the present polls.

Photograph: PTI Photo