Cong snatches defeat from jaws of victory

The senior Hooda's blind spot for his son has damaged the party more than Sonia Gandhi's preference for Rahul.

- Ajay Jha

The idiom, "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory," is often used in sporting parlance when a favourite team ends up losing the match. India's principal opposition Congress party ended up doing precisely this in the northern state of Haryana, that too by scoring a self-goal.

Even ardent BJP supporters would not have bet on the party retaining power, let alone creating a new record by becoming the first to score a hat-trick of victories. The BJP top leadership themselves were apprehensive, having asked Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar to quit in March amidst reports of his growing unpopularity and the heavy baggage of anti-incumbency that he was supposed to carry.

The BJP's hunch that its stock was declining in Haryana proved correct in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The party, which had made a clean sweep by winning all 10 LS seats five years ago, had to share honours with Congress as the two arch-rivals won five seats each. However, the drastic change in just four months took everyone by surprise. The BJP has recorded its biggest-ever victory in Haryana even as the vanquished Congress party is refusing to accept defeat.

This is against the backdrop of the October 5 exit polls which had tipped Congress to return to power.

The Congress began the day by faulting the autonomous Election Commission of India for not updating trends as vote counting commenced.

By day's end, they resorted to the expected claim - the results were rigged. The grouse stemmed from the fact that the party had lost 10 seats by margins less than 5,000 votes, the closest being the defeat of Brijendra Singh, a former BJP Lok Sabha MP who had quit the party along with his father Chaudhary Birender Singh, by just 32 votes from Uchana Kalan constituency.