Haryana election results: Congress’ narrative appears to have failed to find resonance with voters

As the BJP looks set to retain Haryana, the Congress’ poll campaign, which was built around various issues including unemployment, farmers’ plight and Agnipath scheme, appeared to have failed to click with a majority of the voters. The intense poll campaigns by the senior Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, also could not yield the desired result for the opposition party.

The party was looking to make a comeback after a decade by wresting power from the BJP.

However, the trends showed that the ruling BJP has crossed the majority mark in the Haryana assembly and was leading on 51 seats, while the Congres was ahead on 34

The Congress had built its poll narrative around unemployment, farmers’ demand for a legal guarantee to minimum support price, the Agnipath military recruitment scheme and inflation in order to target the BJP’s 10-year tenure.

However, BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah countered the Congress party’s offensive with the transparent system of providing government jobs and guaranteed and pensionable job for an Agniveer hailing from Haryana.

What challenges did you face when you first started out in Haryana?
We were not under any delusion. We knew that Haryana was a tough nut to crack. We mobilised workers, learnt from the mistakes made in the Lok Sabha polls (the BJP tally dropped from 10 in 2019 to five in this year’s general elections)… The Congress had set a narrative of kisan, pehalwan, jawan and samvidhan (farmers, wrestlers, soldiers and the Constitution). But they (the Congress cadre) did not work on the ground. We focused on the right candidate selection, party management, and a good campaign. The Congress was divided and had no clarity of who would be the chief minister. Nayab Singh Saini was our face all along.

With Thanks Reference to:https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/elections/assembly-elections/haryana/haryana-election-results-congress-narrative-appears-to-have-failed-to-find-resonance-with-voters/articleshow/114048753.cms and https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/haryana-bjp-in-charge-congress-satish-poonia-9614236/