Congress Suspects Discrepancy In Election Results For Seven Haryana Seats: Three Haven't Been Won By Party For Decades

In a memorandum given to the Election Commission of India (ECI) regarding alleged discrepancy in the Haryana assembly election result, the Congress party has named seven constituencies.

Of these seven constituencies, six are won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and one, of Dabwali, by the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) by a narrow margin of 610 votes.

Dabwali remained an INLD bastion for almost two decades, but the party lost it in 2019 to Congress. The Congress fielded its sitting MLA Amit Sihag but he lost to INLD's Aditya Devilal.

Aditya is the grandson of the former Chief Minister of Haryana Devi Lal, the founder of the INLD. Aditya had lost to Amit in 2019 when the former contested as the BJP candidate.

Other than Dabwali, two other seats, which the Congress has challenged, had incumbent Congress MLAs. Pardeep Chaudhary was defeated in Kalka and Chiranjeev Rao in Rewari.

Chaudhary had defeated then-sitting BJP MLA Latika Sharma in 2019. This time, the BJP cut her ticket and instead, fielded former Congress leader Venod Sharma’s wife Shakti Rani Sharma, who had joined the party a few days ago.

Notably, Chiranjeev had won by a margin of just 1,300 votes in 2019 in the constituency once represented by his father. In absolute numbers, he received a higher number of votes this time but could not win.

Three other seats challenged by the Congress, have not been won by the party for decades. The Congress last won in Panipat City and Karnal in 2009 and in Narnaul in 1991.

BJP MLAs Pramod Kumar Vij and Om Prakash Yadav retained their Panipat City and Narnaul respectively. A new face named Jagmohan Anand won from Karnal, a seat that was represented by former CM Manohar Lal Khattar since 2014.

However, after he moved to the Centre by winning the Lok Sabha election, CM Nayab Singh Saini won the seat in the by-polls held earlier this year. But instead of repeating Saini from the seat, the BJP chose Anand and fielded Saini from Ladwa.

The Congress has also challenged Hodal, from where the party's Haryana president Udai Bhan lost. Udai Bhan had won the seat in 2014 but lost in 2019. He was again fielded this time but lost again.