Once kingmaker, JJP bites dust; flop show by INLD too

Jannayak Janta Party, which had emerged as the kingmaker last assembly polls, was decimated this time round, while the Indian National Lok Dal also failed to create much impact, with prominent leaders of both outfits Dushyant Chautala and Abhay Singh Chautala losing their seats.

While the JJP failed to win any seats, down from 10 segments it won in 2019 in the 90-seat assembly, the INLD won two -- one more from what it had managed in the last state elections.

JJP's Dushyant Chautala saw a crushing defeat in Uchana Kalan, a seat he was seeking a re-election from, and came at fifth place, behind the BJP and Congress candidates and two independent contestants.

BJP's Devender Attri defeated Brijendra Singh of Congress by a narrow margin of 32 votes from Uchana Kalan.

Like Dushyant, his uncle and senior INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala also failed to retain his seat and lost from Ellenabad to Congress' Bharat Singh Beniwal by a margin of 15,000 votes.

JJP and Chandra Shekhar Azad-led Azad Samaj Party-Kanshi Ram together fought the Haryana polls while INLD contested in alliance with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

JJP has witnessed a slide in its electoral fortune after it's alliance with the BJP came to an end in March. It became part of the government in Haryana in 2019 by forging a post-poll alliance with BJP, which had fallen six short of majority in 2019.

JJP's vote share dropped from nearly 15 per cent in 2019 to 0.90 per cent this time.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the JJP fielded candidates on all 10 seats, but they got a drubbing and even lost their security deposits.

After JJP's state unit chief Nishan Singh quit the party, seven of its ten legislators switched over to either the Congress or BJP.

The INLD, once a prominent regional outfit, also failed to taste much success, registering victories in just two seats. In 2019, INLD had won only one seat -- Abhay Singh Chautala from the Ellenabad constituency.

Abhay Singh and Ajay Singh Chautala are the grandsons of former deputy prime minister Chaudhary Devi Lal and son of former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala.

Former MP Ajay Singh Chautala-led JJP, which was born after a vertical split in the parent outfit INLD in December 2018 owing to a family feud, saw a sudden rise in its graph and abrupt decline once its alliance with the BJP ended in March when the saffron party replaced Manohar Lal Khattar as chief minister with Nayab Singh Saini.

Dushyant Chautala, who was the deputy CM in the BJP-JJP government in Haryana, had also faced intense pressure from to resign and withdraw the support to BJP during the farmers' stir against the now-repealed farm laws.

The two seats Abhay Singh's INLD won on Tuesday came against his relatives in Rania and Dabwali seats in Sirsa district.

From Rania, Abhay's son Arjun Chautala, an INLD candidate, defeated journalist-turned-politician Sarv Mitter of Congress by a margin of 4,191 votes. Ranjit Chautala, granduncle of Arjun, contesting as an independent ended at the third spot.

From Dabwali, INLD founder Devi Lal's grandson and party candidate Aditya Devi Lal defeated Congress's sitting MLA Amit Sihag by a narrow margin of 610 votes.

JJP's Digvijay Singh Chautala, great grandson of the former deputy prime minister and brother of Dushyant, ended at third spot.

The vote share of INLD has seen a small rise from 2.44 per cent to 4.15 per cent.

With the INLD being out of power in Haryana for two decades, Haryana assembly polls was seen as a battle of survival for the regional outfit whose performance has been on the decline since its split in 2018. In the Lok Sabha elections, too, the INLD had lost all its seats.

The INLD-BSP alliance had promised free cooking gas cylinders, a cash dole of Rs 1,100 to households, free electricity, an old-age pension and monthly unemployment allowance to woo voters.