Voting for the high-stakes Haryana Assembly election 2024 is taking place on Saturday, October 5, with key faces like Congress leader and Olympian wrestler Vinesh Phogat, BJP leader and state chief minister Nayab Singh Saini among several others in the fray.
More than two crore voters are eligible to vote in the elections to 90 assembly seats in Haryana.
The poll campaign ended on Thursday, October 3, with key contesting parties BJP, Congress, AAP, INLD-BSP and JJP-Azad Samaj Party concluding their last ditch efforts to woo voters holding rallies and roadshows.
Haryana Assembly Election | Key Things To Know
Voting in Haryana: The polling for all the 90 constituencies in Haryana will take place on Saturday, October 5 from 7 am to 6 pm, news agency PTI quoted Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Agarwal as saying. A total of 20,629 polling booths have been set up for the elections, officials said. The counting of votes for Haryana Assembly election will take place on October 8, coinciding with that of J&K polls.
Key Candidates And Seats: Out of the total 1,031 candidates in the fray, 101 are women. Prominent among those contesting Haryana Assembly poll 2024 are: BJP leader and Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini (Ladwa seat), Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda (Garhi Sampla-Kiloi seat), Congress's Vinesh Phogat (Julana), INLD's Abhay Singh Chautala (Ellenabad seat), JJP's Dushyant Chautala (Uchana Kalan seat), BJP's Anil Vij (Ambala Cantt seat) and OP Dhankar (Badli seat), and AAP's Anurag Dhanda (Kalayat). Among the independent candidates include India's richest woman, the chairman emeritus of the OP Jindal Group, Savitri Jindal (Hisar seat), Ranjit Chautala (Rania seat) and Chitra Sarwara (Ambala Cantt seat).
Previous Haryana Poll Results: In the previous Haryana Assembly election in 2019, the BJP had won 40 seats and the Congress bagged 31. The BJP formed the government with the support of JJP while most Independents had also extended support to it then. However, JJP's post-poll tie-up with the BJP ended after the saffron party replaced Manohar Lal Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini as chief minister in March this year.
Key Promises By Parties: To woo the voters, the Congress announced seven guarantees in its manifesto, including the promises of a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP), a caste survey, and Rs 2,000 per month to women, if voted to power. BJP key promises include a monthly assistance of Rs 2,100 for women, two lakh government jobs for the youth and guaranteed government job for 'Agniveers' hailing from the state. AAP, which is contesting on its own after talks for a tie-up with the Congress in Haryana failed to materialise, has
Dera Chief Out On Parole: Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who has a sizeable number of followers in many districts of Haryana including Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Hisar - on October 2 walked out of the Sunaria jail in Haryana's Rohtak after he was granted a 20-day parole. The Haryana government has granted a 20-day parole to Singh while barring him from taking part in election-related activities, making speeches and staying in the state during the period. Singh is serving a 20-year sentence given in 2017 for raping two of his disciples. The Dera chief and three others were also convicted in 2019 for the murder of a journalist over 16 years ago.
Some Leaders Who Switched Parties: Several parties saw their leaders switching to other parties in the run up to the assembly elections in Haryana. On October 3, AAP's Nilokheri (reserve) seat candidate Amar Singh joined the Congress. In a setback to the BJP on the same day, senior party leader and former MP Ashok Tanwar made a dramatic return to the Congress at Rahul Gandhi's rally in Mahendragarh district. As Gandhi was winding up his speech at the rally in Bhawaria, an announcement was made from the stage asking the audience to wait for a few minutes. Soon after, Tanwar (48), who had joined the BJP in January this year, walked onto the stage and it was announced that "aaj unki ghar wapasi ho gayi hai [today, he has returned to the Congress fold]".
J&K Polls: The Election Commission said the overall voter turnout in the three-phased Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections 2024 stood at 63.88 per cent with male participation recorded at 64.68 per cent. The overall women turnout was recorded at 63.04 per cent and that of the third gender at 38.24 per cent. The final votes polled will be available post-counting with counting of postal ballots. The voting for J&K polls took place on September 18, September 25 and October 1.
