The Bharatiya Janata Party won 48 seats on Tuesday, as the counting of votes for the Haryana Assembly elections was underway. The Congress won 37 seats.

The Assembly has 90 members and 46 seats are required to form the majority.

While the Indian National Lok Dal clinched two seats, Independent candidates won three seats, Election Commission data showed.

Most exit polls had projected a victory for the Congress in the state.

The Assembly polls in the state took place in a single phase on Saturday, recording a 67.9% voter turnout.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said on Tuesday that his party had filed a complaint with the Election Commission alleging a delay in updating the leads and results of the polls, ANI reported.

In a letter to the poll panel, the party claimed that uploading of the results on the Election Commission’s website had slowed down between 9 am and 11 am.

“As you can imagine this allows bad faith actors to spin narratives that undermine the process,” said the Congress. “Our fear is also that such narratives can then be used by these mala fide actors to influence processes where counting is still underway, i.e., in most of the counting centres.”

In response, the Election Commission rejected the Congress’ “attempt to surreptitiously give credence to irresponsible, unfounded and uncorroborated malafide narratives”.

Wrestler and Congress candidate Vinesh Phogat won the Julana seat with a margin of 6,015 over the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Yogesh Kumar.

Former Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala lost the Uchana Kalan seat by 41,018 votes to a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate. He placed fifth in the race for the seat, which he had won in 2019 by over 19,000 votes.

Chautala’s Jannayak Janta Party, which had allied with MP Chandrashekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), did not win any seats.

Independent candidate Savitri Jindal, who is the chairperson emeritus of the OP Jindal Group, won from Hisar. She had quit the Congress and joined the BJP in March, but contested alone after the Hindutva party denied her a ticket.

Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini won the Ladwa seat, while his BJP colleague and former Cabinet minister Anil Vij won from the Ambala constituency for the sixth time.

Also read: Five reasons for the BJP’s unprecedented third-time win in Haryana

Background

The BJP, which was fighting to win a third consecutive term, faced a challenge from the Congress led by former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

The Indian National Lok Dal tied up with the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janata Party allied with MP Chandrashekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram).

The Aam Aadmi Party, which is the Congress’ ally at the national level, contested the polls alone but did not win any seats.

There was dissatisfaction among the voters fuelled by concerns about livelihood and inflation.

The Agnipath scheme, introduced by the BJP-led Union government in 2022, alienated voters in a state that traditionally sends more personnel to the armed forces than most others. According to the scheme, the armed forces hire soldiers below the rank of commissioned officers on four-year contracts and only a fourth of them get permanent tenure. This has made recruitment into the forces less attractive.

There was public anger about the harsh treatment of those who participated in several protests against the BJP governments at the Centre and in the state over the years. These protestors included farmers, wrestlers, sarpanches and Anganwadi workers.

Also read: Vinesh Phogat is winning over Haryana’s women – but is still wrestling with a tough election

In the 2019 Haryana elections, the BJP won 40 seats in the 90-member Assembly. Having fallen short of the majority mark, it had formed the government with the support of the Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party. The Congress had won 31 seats.

Manohar Lal Khattar, who had been the state’s chief minister since October 2014, retained his position and Chautala became his deputy.

In March, weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP replaced Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini as the chief minister. The ties between the Hindutva party and the Jannayak Janta Party also snapped, leading to Chautala’s resignation.

In the recent general election, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and the Opposition INDIA bloc won five seats each. Haryana has 10 Lok Sabha constituencies. The BJP had won all 10 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Also read: Organised chaos: Why BJP is encouraging multiple chief minister claimants in Haryana