New Delhi:

With exit polls predicting a Congress win in Haryana, the focus has moved to who would be the next Chief Minister.

Health warning: exit polls often get it wrong.

Former Chief Minister and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda said if it comes to deciding the next Chief Minister, that’s a call the “high command” would take.

There are 90 seats in the Haryana assembly, so the halfway mark is 46. Most exit polls predicted the Congress would likely win between 44 and 61 seats.

Asked about senior leaders Kumari Selja and Randeep Surjewala also airing their chief ministerial ambitions, Hooda said, 

“We are expecting to win many more seats. Under the BJP, law and order has become worse, corruption has increased, and sports have not been spared too,” Mr Hooda told NDTV today.

On a question to a buzz about some Congress leaders working on a cabinet formation plan, Mr Hooda said, “The high command will decide. These are hypothetical questions.”

Senior leaders Kumari Selja and Randeep Surjewala have also made their chief ministerial ambitions known. On whether Ms Selja would become the next Chief Minister, Mr Hooda said, “This is democracy. Everybody should aspire. You can also aspire. But the MLAs will decide, the high command will decide.”

During a rally on September 27, Mr Hooda had predicted a “massive mandate” for the Congress in Haryana. He dismissed talks of infighting, and said the party would get more strength from having multiple claimants for the chief minister’s post.

New Delhi:

With voting over in Haryana, it is now time to find out what the exit polls have predicted for the state as well as the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

It is a largely bipolar contest in Haryana and an important one both for the BJP, which is looking to form a government in the state for the third straight time and the Congress, which is hoping to make a comeback.

The BJP won only five of the state’s 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana after sweeping all of them in 2019 and these Assembly elections are an opportunity for the party to prove that it remains popular with voters after failing – for the first time in 10 years – to achieve a majority on its own in the general elections.

In the Lok Sabha elections, the other five constituencies in Haryana were won by the Congress, which believes it is in a strong position to form the government in the state this time.

The 2019 Assembly elections had seen the BJP winning 40 of the state’s 90 seats, the Congress 31 and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) 10. The BJP had formed the government with the support of the JJP and Dushyant Chautala became the deputy chief minister. The alliance ended after the BJP replaced Manohar Lal Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini as the chief minister in March.

Jammu and Kashmir also has 90 seats and it voted in its first Assembly elections since 2014, first as a Union Territory and first after the removal of Article 370, which gave the erstwhile state special status. 

Statehood has been a major issue in the elections and its restoration has been promised by the BJP – including by PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah – as well as the Congress and the National Conference, which contested the polls in an alliance. 

Another major player is Mehbooba Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party and other parties include Abdul Ghani Lone’s People’s Conference, Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party and Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party. An interesting development in these elections was the entry of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami, which backed some candidates, and its strategic alliance with Engineer Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party.

The counting of votes will be held on October 8.