India’s BJP wins Haryana, Kashmir favours Congress alliance: What to know

India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to register a surprise win in the northern state of Haryana, although an opposition alliance was ahead in the first assembly elections in Indian-administered Kashmir in a decade.

Exit polls had projected a win in Haryana for the opposition Congress party, but the BJP managed to come back to power in the state for a third term, months after suffering electoral losses in the parliamentary elections.

In a consolation for the Congress party, its regional ally – the Jammu Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) party – was ahead in the Kashmir assembly elections.

The vote counting is still under way and final results will be announced later on Tuesday. Voting was done by postal ballots and Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Haryana went to polls on October 5 while voting was spread across three phases (September 18, 25 and October 1) in Kashmir.

BJP’s surprise victory in Haryana is a big boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist party as they prepare for state elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand states due later in the year.

What was the result of the assembly elections in Haryana and Indian-administered Kashmir?

A party or a political alliance needs to win a simple majority to form government in a state assembly.

In Haryana’s 90-seat assembly, the majority mark is 46 seats. In Kashmir, 90 seats are elected by voters and five other legislators are nominated by the New Delhi-appointed lieutenant governor (LG). In a house of 95, a government will need 48 seats.

• Haryana: Out of 90 total seats, the BJP won or is leading in 48; Congress in 37; local party Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in 2; and independents in 3.
• Indian-administered Kashmir (Officially known as Jammu and Kashmir): Out of 90 total seats, the JKNC won in 42; its alliance partner Congress in 6; the BJP in 29; Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 3; and other parties and independents in 10 seats.

The Congress party was in power in Haryana between 2005 and 2014, during which Bhupinder Singh Hooda was the chief minister. Hooda was seen as the chief ministerial candidate leading up to the 2024 polls.

The incumbent BJP Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini was his party’s face in the current election, and is widely expected to continue at the head of the Haryana government.

In Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, a former chief minister from the JKNC, is expected to head the next government.

Why were these elections significant?

These were the first elections after the parliamentary elections held in April-May. The Hindu majoritarian BJP had failed to win a majority in parliament after a decade, though it secured enough seats to form a government with smaller allies. Analysts attributed its reduced numbers, in part, to rural discontent.

So, the victory in Haryana – a predominantly agrarian state – marks a turnaround for the party, which had lost five out of the state’s 10 parliamentary seats.

These were also the first assembly elections in Kashmir in a decade, and were held five years after the Himalayan region’s limited autonomy was scrapped by Modi’s government. The state was also downgraded into a federally run territory.

Rights groups say local authorities, directly working under New Delhi, have since cracked down on free speech and denied Kashmiris say in the governance of the territory.

In the run-up to the legislative election, Modi promised to restore Kashmir’s “statehood”, but it failed to win support. The party, however, managed to win 29 seats mainly in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region.

The BJP says its 2019 decision was to end what it called “terrorism” and bring development to the picturesque and ecologically fragile Himalayan region. However, armed attacks have continued and unemployment has grown to a record high.

Moreover, analysts say the Kashmir state assembly has been weakened into a municipality, with most powers, including policing and appointment of officials, given to the LG. Kashmiri activists have said it’s a denial of their democratic rights.

Leading up to the polls, Abdullah, the former chief minister, said that the new chief minister would have to beg the LG “to get even a peon [menial labourer] appointed”.

Omar’s father, Farooq Abdullah and grandfather Sheikh Abdullah were also chief ministers of the state, which has seen decades of armed rebellion against Indian rule.

What went wrong for Congress in Haryana?

While some prominent Congress hopefuls won seats in Haryana, including former Chief Minister Hooda and former wrestler Vinesh Phogat, the party did not perform as well as the exit polls had projected.

Analysts said a variety of factors explain this, including:

Issues with the exit polls: The exit polls showed the Congress ahead of the BJP in terms of vote share.

“Most of the polls were showing that the Congress was gaining significant vote share, which it is still gaining,” political strategist and commentator Amitabh Tiwari told Al Jazeera. However, a high vote share does not necessarily convert into a higher number of seats under India’s first-past-the-post system.

Tiwari also explained that the Congress failed to dent the vote share of the leading party, the BJP, which has been in power since 2014. Instead, it ate into the vote share of regional parties such as Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and independents.

Tiwari added that statistical issues with the exit polls, such as small sample sizes or fewer female respondents, could have led to a forecast of a bigger Congress win.

Alienation of non-Jats: The agricultural Jat community — a dominant force in the state — had thrown its support behind the Congress party, and Hooda over-relied on the Jat vote. However, in doing so, the Congress alienated other communities including the Dalits. The Dalit vote was fractured after the JJP formed alliances with Dalit-friendly parties, advantaging the BJP by lowering the Dalit vote for the Congress, said analysts.

The Congress also failed to break the BJP’s traditional stranglehold in the southern Ahirwal belt, home to major urban centres, such as Gurgaon. “Non-Jats consolidated against the Congress like they did in 2014 and 2019,” Tiwari said.

Rebel candidates: Tiwari also pointed out that rebel candidates might have caused damage to official Congress candidates.

“If there are some strong leaders that are seeking that seat, they contest independently or with another party. [They] tend to wean away votes when they fight independently,” Tiwari said, estimating that the Congress had 29 rebel candidates compared to the BJP’s 19.

However, the effect of rebel candidates on the election result can not be fully assessed unless results are finalised.

Why does the Kashmir assembly have nominated members?

Though the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly has 90 elected members, the LG now has the power to appoint five nominated members in addition.

After scrapping Kashmir’s special status in 2019, the Modi government first assigned the LG the discretion to nominate two women to the assembly under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. The Act was further amended in 2023 to allow the LG to nominate three more members.

This effectively brings the total strength of the assembly to 95, raising the majority mark to 48.

The power of the LG to appoint these members has come under scrutiny with the opposition saying the move is a plan to “subvert democracy” in Kashmir as the BJP could get its supporters nominated.

Tiwari, the analyst, said that the nominated members could only affect the Jammu and Kashmir assembly “if JKNC-Congress did not hit a simple majority” — 48 — which they are poised to hit.

What did the exit polls predict?

Exit polls had predicted the BJP would lose both Haryana and Kashmir assembly elections.

Haryana: Most exit polls projected an easy win for the Congress. Newspaper Dainik Bhaskar projected that Congress would win 44-54 seats and the BJP 15-29 seats out of 90 seats. Others pollsters predicted even higher seats for Congress. The C-Voter-India Today projected 50-58 seats for Congress and Peoples’ Pulse exit poll postulated Congress would win 49-60 seats.

Indian-administered Kashmir: Dainik Bhaskar predicted that the alliance between JKNC and Congress would win between 35 to 40 seats while the BJP would win 20-25 seats. The C-Voter-India Today projected NC-Congress to win 40-48 seats and Peoples’ Pulse projected 46-50 seats for the NC-Congress alliance. Exit polls were very close to the results in Kashmir.

What were the Lok Sabha results for Haryana and Kashmir?

Haryana: The BJP and Congress won five seats each out of Haryana’s 10 parliamentary seats. This was a loss for the BJP, which won all 10 seats in the north Indian state in 2019.

Indian-administered Kashmir: The INDIA ally JKNC won two out of five parliamentary seats. The BJP won two while and an independent candidate won one.