Analysis of the Fourteenth General Elections in India

India Elections
2004 unpublished
The Congress swept the polls in Haryana 9 of the 10 Lok Sabha seat and polled 42.1 percent votes, nearly seven percent higher than what the party polled in 1999 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP managed to win the Sonepat seat. The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) could not even open its account and polled 22.4 percent votes. The twin factors, which worked against the ruling INLD in Haryana were, first breaking of the alliance between the BJP and the INLD and the non-performance of the state
more » ... . During the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, when, the INLD contested the Lok Sabha elections in alliance with the BJP, they had won all the 10 seats and the alliance had polled 57.9 percent votes. Assuming that these two political parties had contested the 2004 elections as allies, the alliance would have polled 39.6 percent votes. But they would still have remained far been the Congress in terms of votes polled. If BJP-INLD had contested the elections in alliance they would have won only 3 Lok Sabha seats and still Congress would have managed to win 7 seats. It is not only the breaking of the alliance which explains the rout of the INLD, but there is some thing more to explain why voters in Haryana, voted for the Congress in large numbers. High level of dissatisfaction of the people with the Chautala government is the real reason why people turned away from the ruling INLD. In the NES 2004 post poll survey voters gave negative opinions on various issue relating to the Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala. Though the government had not been rated very negatively on the issues of development and people Statewide
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