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Congress outdoes BJP in Nuh, Punhana, Firozepur Jhirka

Gurugram | ByHT Correspondent
May 25, 2019 12:48 AM IST

The three constituencies in Mewat have traditionally voted for regional parties such as the INLD, but shifted their allegiance to the Congress en bloc and helped the grand old party get a respectable total in the overall tally from Gurgaon.

An analysis of the voting pattern of the Gurgaon parliamentary seat shows that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was given fewer votes than the Congress, almost half, in only three of the nine assembly segments of Nuh, Punhana and Firozepur Jhirka.

The three constituencies in Mewat have traditionally voted for regional parties such as the INLD, but shifted their allegiance to the Congress en bloc and helped the grand old party get a respectable total in the overall tally from Gurgaon.

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As per the final numbers released by district election office, the highest number of votes that went to Congress’s kitty was from Firozepur Jhirka where 1,08,324 electors cast their franchise in its support, while BJP managed to get 26,466 votes.

In Nuh, Congress candidate Captain (retd) Ajay Singh Yadav managed 82,116 votes, while the BJP could only muster 34,528 votes.

But the least votes cast for Gurugram BJP leader and sitting MP Rao Inderjit Singh were from Punhana, where Congress led with 81,876 votes and the BJP got 22,267 votes.

“The people of Mewat have felt that the BJP government in the Centre and state had brought no development in the region. They also wanted to support Congress as it could ensure the defeat of BJP and this boosted our numbers,” senior Congress leader Pradeep Zaildar said. But the rest of the state was a different story.

Three-time MP Singh got the highest number of votes from Badshahpur and Gurugram among.

Out of the 2,40,686 people who cast their vote in Badshapur on May 12, nearly 77%, that is 1,85,138 people, voted for Singh. Around the same percentage of voters—1,62,627 out of 2,09,364—chose Singh in Gurugram, where both urban and rural voters hold a sway in the elections.

As per the district election office, Singh got a total of 8,81,546 votes, while his opponent Captain (retd) Yadav was a distant second with 4,95,290 votes.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Singh’s victory margin stood at 2.74 lakh votes against his nearest rival Zakir Hussain of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which did not even finish third in the constituency this time.

Anil Arya, a Gurugram-based political analyst, said the reason why BJP got the numbers in Badshahpur and Gurugram was that the urban voters, who have been traditional BJP supporters, were joined by people in rural belt as well.

“The issues of national security, nationalism and Balakot strike resonated with the people. Also, personal attacks on the PM backfired and all these resulted in overwhelming support for the BJP candidate,” Arya said.

The INLD, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and other parties, which would otherwise normally get into double digits in these two constituencies, were mauled as voters preferred either of the two national parties.

BSP candidate Ch Raees Khan got 3,020 votes in Gurugram. Former corporate head Mehmood Khan of debutante Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) got 1,254 votes and Virender Rana of INLD got 799 votes. The trend was same in all other assembly segments as well.

In Pataudi, the traditional stronghold of Inderjit Singh, the BJP got 1,20,882 votes while Congress managed 26,062, BSP candidate got 2,266 votes, INLD’s Virender Rana managed 1,388 votes while JJP’s Mehmood Khan got 1,008 votes.

The strong undercurrent in favour of BJP also ensured that candidates from other parties, who normally managed to cross the 50,000 mark found it difficult to even cross the 10,000 votes mark. “The BJP was buoyed by the strong image of PM Modi and work done by state government,” senior BJP leader GL Sharma said.

In Sohna, BJP managed 89,198 votes while Congress performed relatively better with 53,336 votes. The BSP managed 6,103 votes while, JJP got 673 votes, and the INLD managed only 688 votes. In his home seat of Rewari, Singh raced ahead of captain Yadav with 85,101 votes.

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