All the seats where Ram Rahim was perceived to exercise influence, were lost by the BJP.
New Delhi: The release of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Ram Rahim on parole, before Haryana voted, was expected to help the BJP. However, all the seats where the 57-year-old head of the “religious cult” is perceived to exercise influence, were lost by the BJP.
This is in line with the past results where despite the perception, the cult members have failed to make any impact on the electoral results. This is bound to raise questions within the BJP about the wisdom of accepting support from a convicted individual, especially given the criticism it invites.
As has been the practice of followers being asked to vote for a specific political party, this time too, the Dera followers were instructed to vote for the BJP through internal messaging.
The Congress, on 30 September, had written to the Election Commission to not grant parole to Rahim claiming that he might influence the voters. However, Rahim who had been sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of raping two of his disciples, was granted 20 days’ parole on 1 October by the Haryana government.
However, an analysis of the 8 October result shows that the BJP lost all the five Assembly seats of Sirsa where the headquarters of the Dera Sacha are located. The BJP had contested four seats itself and supported Gopal Kanda of Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP) on the remaining one seat.
Of the five seats, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) won two, and Congress won three. Congress claimed victory in Ellenabad, Sirsa, and Kalanwali, while INLD won in Dabwali and Rania. Excluding Kalanwali, the BJP ranked third or fourth in the remaining three seats, with Gopal Kanda coming in second in Sirsa and losing by more than 7,000 votes. Similarly, in Fatehabad district where Rahim followers claim to have a substantial following, the BJP lost all the three seats despite the Dera followers publicly announcing their support for the BJP.
In Adampur seat of Hisar, despite the support of Dera, the high-profile BJP candidate Bhavya Bishnoi, lost to Congress candidate Chander Parkash Janga, a retired bureaucrat. This is for the first time in over 50 years that Adampur voters did not vote for family members of former CM Bhajan Lal.
In Ambala, where the sect claims to have a large number of followers, Congress won three of the four seats.
Just months ago, the cult had announced its support for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, which was followed by Ram Rahim’s close relative and two-time Punjab MLA Harminder Singh Jassi joining the BJP in the last week of May. Jassi’s daughter is married to the son of the Dera head.
However, during the general elections too, Dera failed to bring much electoral dividend for the BJP. The BJP lost the Sirsa seat, where the headquarters of the Dera is located, to the Congress by more than 2.86 lakh votes. More significantly, Congress won most of its seats in the rural belt of Haryana, where the Dera claims to have the maximum influence.
The first time the Dera openly supported any political party was in 2007, when it pledged its allegiance for the Congress in 2007 for the Punjab elections. However, despite that, the Congress managed to win only 37 of 67 Assembly seats in the Malwa region where the Dera has a strong following and failed to form the government.
Similarly, in the run-up to the 2012 Assembly elections, Dera head’s close relative Jassi organised a rally for Congress CM candidate Captain Amarinder Singh in Bathinda city. However, it proved to be of no help for the Congress as the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) again formed the government in the state. Jassi, who contested on a Congress ticket, himself lost the Bathinda (Urban) constituency by 8,000 votes. Jassi again lost the 2014 byelection from Talwandi Sabo to SAD candidate and then finished third in Maur in 2017 polls. In the 2017 Punjab polls, the Dera changed its allegiance and gave its support to the SAD. However, SAD could manage to win only 15 Assembly seats.
After the BJP formed government at the Centre in 2014, the Dera publicly supported the BJP in the Haryana Assembly elections that were held the same year. However, the BJP won only seven of the 26 seats in western Haryana where the Dera influence is supposed to be the strongest. The party won no seat in a 100 km radius of the Dera headquarters in Sirsa.
A retired professor from Delhi, who has been a follower of the sect for over 10 years, stated that in this election, Dera followers were able to influence the results in favour of the BJP on 10 of the total 26 seats in the state where they believe they have an impact.