It is about 7.30 am in Khera Bakhta village in Haryana’s Julana Assembly constituency and Vinesh Phogat, wearing a blue-beige striped night suit, white slippers, and several bead bracelets, is standing in a dingy room at the entrance to her in-laws’ house discussing the day’s programme with her assistant.

A security officer in a dark blue safari suit mills about and men drop in with their wives and daughters to request her for a photograph.

Vinesh obliges, poses and then rushes off to get ready.

“It’s a very tight campaign schedule,” her assistant says, “and there are 150 phone calls that need to be returned”.

A few minutes later Vinesh emerges carrying a small Armani Exchange handbag. She is wearing a green printed salwar-suit and sneakers. The kurta is too long, and the salwar balloons at her ankles.

Married to Somveer Rathi, a resident of Khera Bakhta, one of the 73 villages in Julana which is a mostly rural and agrarian constituency, Vinesh is referred to as “Julana’s bahu”, and the women of Khera Bakhta, her father-in-law, and her husband have all been campaigning for her.

The people’s winner

“In wrestling, I could control the outcome to a large extent. But here, it’s in people’s hands,” Vinesh told Frontline at the Congress’ office which is a 15-minute drive from the house.

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But there are many habits and drills from her training as a wrestler that are coming in handy.

“You know, the fear that we feel in sports and how we overcome it to play with confidence, that is definitely helping here,” she says. And then there’s the discipline of keeping a daily, punishing routine, giving it your best, and not thinking too much about the outcome.

On September 7, exactly a month after she was disqualified at the Paris Olympics after failing to make weight, the Congress announced Vinesh Phogat, 30, as their candidate from Julana. That day the elite athlete closed one chapter of her life to set off on a different course.

“I can put things in compartments in my mind and keep them shut till I am ready or want to deal with them,” she says, calling this self-preservation trick “god’s gift” to her.

The protest at Jantar Mantar, the alleged sexual harassment of female wrestlers, including her, by the former BJP MP and wrestling federation chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and the heartbreak at the Paris Olympics are all locked in compartments in her head.

“Apne liye kab tak roti phiroongi? [How long will I keep crying for myself?] It’s best to forget yourself and march ahead for others,” she says, but then reminisces about wrestling which has been her life since the age of six. “Athlete ki best life hoti hai [Athletes have the best life].”

As she walks towards her first campaign stop for the day, her petite frame swaying in her ill-fitting salwar suit, her strangely clipped hair—trimmed by her coach on that fateful night in Paris when she tried everything to cut weight—is the only visible reminder she carries of the disappointment of being robbed of the medal she deserved.

When I ask why she has not fixed her hair, she laughs but does not say anything.

“Is it some sort of a reminder, a zid, a vow?” I ask again.

She responds, tangentially. “Mera mindset aisa hi hai —main zid karke hi kuch paati hoon.” (My mindset is like that—whatever I have achieved, I have only because of my stubbornness and persistence.)

Like Draupadi’s long untied hair in the Mahabharata, Vinesh Phogat’s jagged haircut, snipped too close in places, is like a constant reminder to the voters of Julana that they have to defend her honour.

“Vinesh Phogat is not fighting this election. People are fighting it and she is winning,” says Sandeep Mor, a local businessman who follows politics keenly.

But from the outer ring of Congress workers in Julana, plumes of discontent have been rising. Senior, old hands of the party in the district, the ones who have been with the party for a long time but are now being kept at a distance by Vinesh Phogat’s team, complain that she is relying on men who are not familiar with Julana or the Congress, or how elections are fought.

“It’s not clear to me if people around her want her to win or lose the election,” a senior district-level Congress leader told Frontline on the condition of anonymity and added that her “arrogant attitude” is not helping. “She thinks her celebrity status is enough to win the election.”

He does not meet her nor does he visit the Congress office, he says, but is working long hours to make sure she wins. “This is people’s election. Isko jitana hamari majboori hai [Ensuring that she wins is our compulsion]. Her win is a prestige issue for Julana and for Jats. If we lose, kaum ki besti hogi [it would be an insult for our community].”

The crowds at celebrity campaigns can be misleading, but in Julana you can sense a sympathy wave for the girl who defeated the world champion in Paris but was cheated of the medal she deserved. And then there is anger against the BJP over the farm laws and farmers’ protests, Agniveer, rising unemployment, paper leaks, lack of development, and general mismanagement.

By all accounts Vinesh Phogat is the winning candidate in Julana. But it is still a fight.

“When she began campaigning, she had a lead of about 50,000 votes. That gap has reduced by over 15,000 votes,” the Congress leader says and fears that there is an attempt to sabotage her elections and ensure that Vinesh loses again, by a 100 grams or more.

Haryana goes to the polls on October 5 to elect a 90-member State Legislative Assembly. Counting will take place on October 8.

For the girls of Jantar Mantar and the nations daughters

Julana, with 1,85,565 registered voters, is the hottest seat in the Haryana elections, but it is also a tough seat.

The constituency has not voted for a Congress candidate in the last three Assembly elections, and in the last election in 2019, the Congress polled just 12,440 votes, ranking third after Jannayak Janta Party’s (JJP) 61,942 and the BJP’s 37,749 votes.

Vinesh’s opponents, a mix of debutants and veterans, include Surendra Lather, a former excise and taxation commissioner, who is fighting on the Indian National Lok Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party ticket. The AAP has fielded Kavita Dalal, a WWE wrestler, and the BJP’s candidate is Captain Yogesh Bairagi, an ex-fauji and the party’s youth leader. Bajrangi, belonging to the backward class, is the only non-Jat candidate from Julana that has always sent a Jat to the State Assembly.

Also in the fray is sitting MLA Amarjeet Dhanda, fighting on the Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party and Chandrashekhar Azad’s Aazad Samaj Party’s alliance ticket.

But Vinesh has had a winning start.

To contest from Julana on a Congress ticket, 86 aspirants—the highest amongst Haryana’s 90 seats —had submitted their candidature, along with the non-refundable Rs.20,000 fee. Vinesh Phogat was not among the 86.

Vinesh, who began campaigning on September 11, has covered all the 73 villages at least once and is now making longer stops to visit chaupals [halls]—villages in Haryana have three to four community-specific chaupals (community spaces) where they hold meetings, host wedding guests.

In Karsola village, her first stop of the day, the chaupal is painted a shade of green-blue and an Ambedkar portrait hangs on a wall. As she enters, people surge towards her with garlands, hands reach out to bless her. Laddoos sit on a table next to small water bottles.

Whether it is her euphoric road shows or these more intimate meetings, the numbers of women at her campaign stops has been impressive.

In Haryana’s patriarchal society, where women are known as someone’s behen [sister], beti [daughter], or bahu [daughter-in-law], and most cover their faces, they have stood on JCB earthmovers to shower rose petals on her while shouting “hamari beti [our daughter]”. They cheered as she was weighed against laddoos and stood waiting for hours to offer her milk in steel glasses.

In Karsola, after she has rattled off the Congress’ key promises—a 200 square yard plot and money for constructing a house, two lakh jobs, free electricity up to 300 units, LPG cylinder for Rs.500—a woman tells her that she and many others in the village do not have ration cards to claim subsidised ration.

“Card banwana mera kaam hai [Making cards is my job],” says Vinesh.

“Women are turning up because they are emotional about the fight that had started in Jantar Mantar and they want results—for those girls, but also for their own daughters. In us, they see icons and have a lot of expectations.”

Is it scary, I ask.

“No, not at all. What is there to be scared of? These are my people, they will have expectations. Their expectations motivate me,” she says.

It is the reason that she wakes up every day at 7 am instead of her usual 12 noon.

“It gives me jeene ki, kuch karne ki icchcha. Jab tak unki umeed hai, mujhe har din uthne ki icchcha hai. Umeed nahin hogi toh main ghar baith jaaogi.” (It gives me the desire to live, to do something. As long as they have hope, I wish to get up everyday. If there is no hope, I would just sit at home.)

It is 11 am and 34°C. As she steps out, an old man with a walking stick arrives to bless her and hands her a Rs.100 note.

Sleep-deprived, tired, sweating, flushed, and nursing an upset stomach, she says that if she wins, the first thing she will do is fix the problem of drinking water in Julana which has alarming levels of pollutants.

“I am going to homes and drinking matke ka paani [water from clay pots]. Meri halat kharab ho rahi hai is paani se. [I feel ill drinking this water] People who drink this water everyday, can you imagine what their condition must be?” she says.

“Aur mere se zyada paani ki importance kisi ko pata nahin hai [And no one knows the importance of water more than me],” she says, laughing, opening the Paris compartment, but then shutting it quickly.

Her convoy includes a car with speakers on top, and every time she enters or leaves a village, a song blares: “Bharat desh ka hira ye saari desh mein chai… Vinesh Phogat hai aayi, saari duniya main chaai.”

The women leave too, many of them carrying back the untouched laddoos, three in each hand.

What are Phogat’s odds?

Nisha, 25, a graduate, lives in Sindhvi Khera village with her brother and mother. From a Scheduled Caste, she does not work, but her brother does construction work, usually for 15 days a month, at Rs.500 per day.

All of them plan to vote for the BJP’s candidate.

In Gatauli village, one of Julana’s largest, with a population of 5,500, votes are split 50-50 between Jats and non-Jats.

Haryana has “36 biradaris”— 36 castes—and votes are cast on caste lines.

Jats, at 40 per cent, are dominant in Julana, followed by Scheduled Castes (20 per cent), OBC (17 per cent), and Brahmins who make up about 11 per cent of the population.

Traditionally, Brahmins, Punjabis, and OBCs vote for the BJP, while Jats and Scheduled Castes vote for the Congress. But this equation has changed somewhat with the BJP replacing its Punjabi Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini, an OBC. Earlier this year, the BJP lost 5 of the 10 parliamentary seats it held to the Congress in the Lok Sabha election.

There is also anger at a party member’s casteist slur aimed at the Congress’ Sirsa MP and the party’s Dalit face in Haryana, Selja Kumari. Then there is factionalism in the BJP and Congress, and anger towards the regional Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party. Chautala, with his 10 MLAs, helped the BJP form a government in 2019, and spoke against the farmers’ protest and in favour of farm laws.

“This upset the JJP’s traditional voters a great deal. They feel cheated and at least 70-80 per cent of JJP’s vote will shift to the Congress this time,” a political consultant told Frontline.

In Gobindpura village, which is dominated by Dalits and OBCs, sarpanch Kamal Mathur says that the “BJP’s Bairagi will get about 40,000 votes or less. The Jats are determined to make Vinesh win. The Jat vote will not change. Maan samman ki baat hai [It is a matter of respect].”

‘Money, brotherhood, and alcohol’

The Congress is riding on anti-incumbency and has an edge in Julana, but the election campaign has been very low key, not just in Julana, but throughout Haryana.

“The BJP has realised that voters are not really interested in attending or listening to big speeches by Narendra Modi, and the Congress is just banking on anti-incumbency,” the political consultant said.

There have been very few big rallies by national leaders. Posters, buntings, and the noise and excitement of elections is also missing. It is as if voters have already decided, and that there is not much to say for political parties.

News of the few big rallies and statements by Modi, Rahul Gandhi, and Bhupinder Hooda are covered in the local editions of India’s top Hindi and Punjabi newspapers, as are stories of Kumari Selja being miffed, but there is hardly any coverage of other election campaigns, rallies, including of hot seats like Julana.

“Political parties are spending money on digital ads but not on print. That’s why the local papers news hi nahin chala rahe [That’s why the local papers are not running the news],” the political consultant said.

Three people, including a local reporter from one of the national dailies, told Frontline on the condition of anonymity that all campaign news is paid news in Haryana’s newspapers.

He spoke of “election-time deals” that are struck by the State’s top leadership or by individual candidates. “The packages start from Rs.5 to 10 lakh per candidate and the newspaper owners either send their people or come themselves to collect money and then they write about the candidates badha-chadha ke [in an exaggerated manner]. No party has struck a deal this time. The packages haven’t come, that’s why there is no coverage of the campaigns,” he said.

A YouTuber, whose channel has around 7,500 subscribers, follows Vinesh around, recording, conducting interviews, and then uploading the videos.

“What’s the point of striking these deals with newspapers and getting paid news? If we do the deal, then so will all others. So what’s the benefit?” a member of Vinesh’s team said.

But a Congress leader, unhappy with the way Vinesh’s campaign is being run, complains about “poor media management”.

“The candidate said no package and no sharab [booze] will be distributed. I salute her for that. But her mismanagement is costing her. Yahan Congress ka vote nahin hai [There is no Congress vote here]. And Vinesh and her team have no strategy,” he said.

A list of 4,000 Congress workers in Julana’s villages was handed to her team, he says, so that they could be informed about her programme, campaign. “But they lost the list,” he said.

“There have been instances when she’s reached a village, but there’s been no information on the ground. Messages to party workers should be going out. Calls should be made to voters. But none of this is happening,” he added.

Even her campaigning route has been badly planned so that she wastes a lot of time traveling, he said.

“The BJP has placed people inside the Congress camp and they have been trying their best to do saazish [conspiracy].”

“Any of the 86 applicants who did not get the Julana ticket”, or Hooda’s rivals within the Congress could be behind the attempts to sabotage. “It could even be Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh,” he said.

But her arrogance is the worst, he says and recalls how, when someone tried to introduce Vinesh to Dharmender Singh Dhull, saying that he was the party’s candidate in the last two Assembly elections, “she walked off saying, ‘It was the party’s decision’”.

“The BJP is very good at managing elections. Their organisation, down to booth level is excellent,” the political consultant said. While the BJP’s cadre is mostly inactive, the RSS’ cadre has been activated and is conducting what he calls a “silent campaign”, meeting and placating voters who are upset.

“She doesn’t have five people in each village for booth management. She hasn’t met the SP, the collector, or the tehsildar. It’s very important to meet them because they oversee counting. A warning was issued to her recently by the top leaders and her attitude has changed slightly now,” the upset Congress leader said..

In the Congress office in Julana, where there are no women, only men sitting around hookahs, there is talk of how a rival party is handing out chits to their workers and volunteers to claim their quota of booze bottles.

“All this money and booze business increases in the last two-three days before polling, when campaigning stops. Votes do shift with money, not so much with booze,” the consultant said.

“For BPL [below poverty line] families, workers, mazdoor, Rs.2,000 per voter was the going rate in the last election, and that is four days’ earning for them. Now the demand is for Rs.4,000-Rs 5,000 per voter.”

“She’s surrounded by chamchas who are telling her she is winning, she’s ahead, but there is a fight and in the last three-four days, elections palat jaate hain [get overturned],” the Congress leader said.

And fortunes are mostly made and changed with “paisa, bhai-chara, and sharab [money, brotherhood, and alcohol]”.

‘I am going mad’

“Main pagal ho gayi hoon [I am going mad],” says Vinesh when asked about her experience of campaigning.

“Politics destroys your ego. There are all types of people that you have to deal with. Some get upset. Personal ego khatam kar deta hai politics [Personal ego destroys politics]. You have to understand this and act accordingly,” she said.

There is some truth in the criticism about her attitude and gripes about how she is running her campaign, but there is also exaggeration, chauvinism, sexism, and irritation at the diminishing significance of veterans who feel sidelined.

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It is a story that plays out every time a woman from a non-political family becomes a candidate in a winnable constituency. It is an old song from an old playbook, of new entrants in hierarchical, male-dominated parties.

Vinesh Phogat conducts her campaigns like her six-minute wrestling bouts. She is direct, quick, super-focussed, and sharp. She answers questions, assures voters that she will be around to help them, poses for photographs, asks for votes, but does not plead. She does not waste time and she maintains her swag.

Vinesh is playing this political bout to win. “So many people are working on this election. I am fighting to win. Whatever the end result will be, I should have no regret that I didn’t try my best,” she says, and then adds that she is not scared of losing.

“What is the worst that can happen—that you lose? So what if you lose? So what? You won’t die,” she says, and then adds, philosophically: “Zindagi mein aage jaane ke liye ummeedon ka tootna bhi bahut zaroori hai [It is very important to break expectations to move forward in life].”

Suparna Sharma is a reporter, writer, editor based in Delhi. She writes on politics, crime, cinema, pop culture, and business.

Bordering national capital Delhi, Haryana is among the richest states in India, with a per capita income ( ₹2.96 lakh in 2022-23) about 1.7 times the national average. While the numbers would suggest people in the state are better off than their compatriots elsewhere, the locals do not quite see things that way.

Kulana, for instance, is another world compared to the prosperous and urbanized parts of the state, far from the luxury-car outlets along Grand Trunk Road and gated high-rises in urban Gurgaon. An estimated 65% of the population lives in villages, and this rustic backyard is today setting the agenda for the elections.

Unlike in earlier years, when the assembly poll was a multi-cornered contest, the polls this year are a straight fight between the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has ruled Haryana for two back-to-back terms, and the opposition Indian National Congress (INC), which has ruled the state off and on since its founding. It will be the first head-to-head fight between the two national parties since the 2024 general election.

Unlike in earlier years, when the assembly poll was a multi-cornered contest, the polls this year are a straight fight between the incumbent BJP and the opposition Indian National Congress

It is an election that will be decided by issues such as farm woes, frustration with the army’s recruitment policy, lack of job avenues, and the anguish of the state’s vaunted wrestlers. Most of all it will be decided by which way Haryana’s castes choose to lean.

Farm distress dominates

Any discussion on the Haryana election usually begins with the problems farmers in the state face. While the agriculture sector contributes just about 16% to the state’s gross domestic product, farm issues and farmer angst have dominated its political landscape in recent years.

Political parties have been going all out to pacify and woo farmers. With good reason; the state has been a hotbed of farmer protests in recent years. It started in end-2020, when a mass agitation began after the Centre introduced a set of farm laws to reform the agriculture markets. The protests were led by farmers from neighbouring Punjab and Haryana, who picketed Delhi’s doorstep for more than a year, until the three laws were repealed in 2021.

A fresh round of agitations started this February, with farmers demanding legal status for the government’s minimum support price (MSP) regime. MSP is the price at which the Centre purchases crops, mostly rice and wheat. The farmers want this to be a legal obligation for 24 non-perishable crops. When the farmers decided to march on Delhi again, a face-off ensued, with the Haryana police firing teargas shells and rubber bullets on the protesters.

“We are going to plant mustard (a winter oilseed) now, but fertilizers are not available. The state government procures only a limited quantity of crops like mustard and bajra (at MSP) but payments are often delayed by months,” complained Amit Kumar, a farmer from Kulana. The village, unlike more fertile areas such as Karnal and Ambala, grows less rice and more of other crops, including bajra (pearl millet), as there isn’t enough water available for irrigation.

Hawa Singh, a 73-year-old farmer from Sonipat, complained that rising expenses on farming have pushed him to reduce spending on household items. “The Centre is giving ₹6,000 every year (under the PM-Kisan scheme) to farmers, but I end up paying many times more, because of the 18% GST (goods and services tax) on pesticides, and steep prices of diesel (used to run farm machinery),” he said.

However, state BJP leaders appear confident about winning the farm vote and a third term. “Farmer leaders may be unhappy but real farmers are satisfied with BJP’s performance. The state purchased 14 crops at MSP and it is paying farmers ₹1,000 per acre for not burning paddy stubble (which worsens air pollution during the winter months in the National Capital Region). Congress is fuelling protests for electoral benefits,” said Surjit Kumar Jayni, BJP in-charge of Fatehabad assembly seat.

To be sure, not all farmers are in step with the protests. For instance, a large number of them grow vegetables to supply Delhi’s markets. They depend less on state support and more on market-determined prices as an MSP has not been announced for perishable crops. “We suffered a lot during the farmer agitation of 2020-2021 as roads were blocked and vegetables could not be transported to the Azadpur mandi (in Delhi),” said Dharmendra, a 46-year-old farmer from Dipalpur village in Sonipat, Haryana.

In a bid to win over the farmers, the Congress has promised to provide a legal guarantee for MSP. But the BJP has questioned this; addressing farmers at a rally earlier this month, Prime Minister and BJP leader Narendra Modi said that the Congress has not done so in states where it is in power (Karnataka, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh) and is making a false promise to farmers in Haryana. Modi also asserted that the Centre has removed the minimum export price on premium Basmati rice, which will help growers from the state earn more (the crop will be harvested beginning October).

Job and wrestler angst

The lack of decent jobs is another cause of angst, particularly among the landless. “Four of my children are graduates but none has a proper job,” said Shiv Kumar, a non-teaching staff member at a local private school in Hisar, and resident of a Valmiki mohalla (a settlement of families belonging to scheduled castes) next to Kulana. “It’s a struggle to manage daily expenses with my meagre earnings,” adds Kumar, who supplements a monthly pay of ₹5,000 with casual wage work.

The Congress has been raising the issue of unemployment, tying it with the new army recruitment scheme. “Thousands of youngsters from Haryana are illegally migrating to the USA, risking their lives, because they do not have jobs here. Families are selling land to send their children abroad… because they do not have the option of a secure army job anymore,” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said at an election rally in Hisar, Haryana.

The Congress has not provided MSP in states where it is in power and is making a false promise to farmers in Haryana.
-Narendra Modi

The BJP’s Jayni countered this by saying that the state government had created 150,000 jobs during its term, in a clean and transparent manner.

In comparison with some states, Haryana certainly seems to be performing better. The unemployment rate among graduates in the state is at 6.6%, about half the national average, as per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for 2023-24.

A protest by female wrestlers has also become an emotive issue in rural Haryana. Wrestlers from the state have won multiple Olympic medals. Last January, Sakshi Malik (Olympic bronze medalist in 2016) and Vinesh Phogat led a protest in Delhi alleging sexual harassment of women wrestlers by former head of the wrestling federation and former BJP parliamentarian Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. The ‘daughters of the state’ being dragged on the streets of the national capital by the police touched a raw nerve.

Phogat, who attained celebrity status after assuring herself of at least a silver medal at the Paris Olympics in August only to be disqualified for being overweight by 100 gm, is contesting the elections on a Congress ticket from Julana assembly seat.

“Our sisters and daughters were dragged along the streets of Delhi. Anyone who protests, be it farmers or women wrestlers, is termed anti-national. This anger will be reflected on polling day,” said former wrestler Bajrang Punia, who is currently the chairman of farmer’s wing of the Congress party. He won a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and happens to be Vinesh’s brother-in-law.

The caste factor

Politics in Haryana has always been dominated by caste. Jats, an agrarian upper caste, who comprise about a quarter of the state’s population, traditionally align with the Congress. Other Backward Castes or OBCs account for about 30% and the BJP has banked heavily on their support. Dalits (Scheduled Castes) make up another 20% of the electorate. The saffron party is hopeful of winning a third term by again riding on a consolidation of non-Jat votes.

In the 2019 state elections, the BJP won 40 out of 90 seats with a vote share of 36.5%. It formed the government in alliance with the Jananayak Janata Party (JJP), which had won ten seats. This time around, the JJP, which got 15% of the vote and won 10 seats in the 2019 polls, is facing the wrath of the Jats for supporting the BJP. Party chief Dushyant Chautala has said he made a mistake by continuing as the deputy chief minister during the farmers’ agitation in 2020/21. Indeed, amid the clash between the BJP and Congress, other parties, including the AAP, INLD, and BSP, seem to have become a sideshow in this election.

In the general elections held earlier this year, the BJP’s vote share dropped by 12 percentage points from the 2019 general elections to 46%, while the Congress saw its vote share rise by 15 percentage points to 44%. As a result, the BJP lost five of the state’s ten Lok Sabha seats to the Congress.

In March, just a month before the Lok Sabha polls, and with six months remaining for the state elections, the BJP replaced chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who had helmed the state for nine years, with Nayab Singh Saini, in a bid to counter anti-incumbency. Khattar belongs to the Khatri caste, a minority Punjabi upper caste community, and was Haryana’s first Punjabi chief minister. Saini, who belongs to the OBC community, is the BJP’s answer to the dominant Jats.

A reading of the BJP manifesto for the state elections shows it is going all out to woo every section of the electorate. It has promised to procure 24 crops for which MSP is announced, a monthly cash transfer of ₹2,100 to women, a ₹10 lakh health insurance scheme, a guaranteed government job to Agniveers (after their four-year stint in the Army) and creating 200,000 government jobs for the youth.

The Congress, too, has promised a monthly cash transfer to women over 18 years of age, cooking gas at ₹500 per cylinder, ₹6,000 pension for elderly and widows, a caste census, restoration of the old pension scheme for government employees, and a legal guarantee on MSP for farmers. In addition, it has promised to provide ₹25 lakh health insurance and government jobs to families who lost a member during the farmer agitation.

While both parties seem to be offering similar sops, it is the state’s caste dynamics that are likely to determine the outcome of the election. On that front, the Congress could find itself on the backfoot with the Dalit vote.

Caste arithmetic is a big factor. The Congress is banking on a consolidation of Jat and Dalit votes, while the BJP is wooing OBCs. Both parties have promised multiple welfare benefits.

A shadow fight is taking place between Bhupinder Hooda, the Congress’s tallest Jat leader and former state chief minister, and Kumari Selja, the party’s Dalit face in Haryana, who is a former central minister and currently a member of Parliament from the Sirsa constituency. In the runup to the state elections, Selja has been noticeably absent from campaigning after being sidelined by Hooda and not being given much of a say in the party’s choice of candidates.

The BJP is banking on that rift, with Modi launching a tirade against Congress at his election rally in Sonipat on 25 September. “The Dalits of Haryana are seeing the drama happening within Congress. If Congress comes back to power the infighting within the party will destroy Haryana,” Modi warned.

Citing the Hansi assembly seat in Hisar as an example of how caste equations could play out, Yoginder Yogi, a local Congress leader said, “Of the 200,000 voters in Hansi, 48,000 are Jats. Whether the Congress will win this seat depends on how the Dalits and OBCs (about 120,000 together) vote. In the 2024 general elections, there was a consolidation of Dalit votes in favour of Congress. But the current internal dynamics of the party could hurt that Jat-Dalit alliance.”

Brewing discontent

The age limit for recruitment in the Indian army was reduced from 23 years to 21 years when the Agnipath scheme was launched in 2022. This seems to be a major grouse among young aspirants. In Sherpura village of Sirsa district, Kulwant Kumar missed his last shot at joining the army after he failed to qualify this year. “I have not thought of what to do next, maybe tend to cattle like my friends do,” said Kumar, 21, son of a small farmer, who will vote for the first time in these elections.

The lack of jobs and a 2022 change in the Indian Army’s recruitment policy to a short-service tenure of four years—known as the Agnipath Scheme—have demotivated the youth, say Congress leaders. “Joining the Army used to be a hope and a mark of financial security for youth from poorer families. You could see hundreds of them running on the streets every morning (preparing for the recruitment physical). Now, these dejected youth are getting into drugs and petty crime,” said Congress leader Punia.

According to Sandeep Sinwar, a farmer and activist from Sirsa, more than 50 youth from the village used to prepare for recruitment in the Army until a few years ago. “That is no longer an option now. We have been actively organizing village-level meetings to dissuade youngsters from falling for drugs, and getting into petty crime,” Sinwar said.

Will this discontent in rural Haryana outdo the support for BJP in urban sections? It certainly appears that way, say two political observers Mint spoke to. “The best case scenario for the BJP would be to win at least 35 seats by maintaining its tally in the urban and industrial belts of south Haryana (Gurgaon, Faridabad, Bhiwani),” said Rahul Verma, political scientist and fellow at Centre for Policy Research, Delhi.

“The BJP had everything going in its favour in 2019. Now, there is a desire for change. Still it would hope that factors like visible Jat dominance and infighting within Congress will help its cause,” said Verma. “Last time, it was a division of Jat votes between Congress and JJP that helped the BJP to form the government. But this time a division in Jat votes looks unlikely.”

Last time, it was a division of Jat votes between Congress and JJP that helped BJP to form the government.
-Rahul Verma

 

Yogendra Yadav, political activist and a former psephologist, who is a native of Rewari in Haryana, also believes the Congress will do well. “Large parts of what we call urban Haryana—towns like Karnal or Rohtak—are not strikingly different from the psychological and social structure of its villages, except for Gurgaon, which is an outlier,” he explained.

“After a few days of travelling in Haryana, it seems like more than half of the outcome of these elections was pre-decided by the electorate even before the campaign began. The current chief minister is more popular than the former one (Khattar). But we cannot forget that even in 2019, BJP did not get a clear mandate—the state had almost voted for a change,” Yadav added. “My sense is, this time it will be a clear verdict in favour of Congress.”