How Khattar’s constituency- Karnal voted?

CM Khattar during his Jan Aashirwaad Yatra in Karnal. 
(Image: Karnal Breaking News)

With the slogan of ’75 plus’ and a target of winning his constituency Karnal with one lakh plus margin’, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar kicked-off his campaign for assembly elections from Karnal in the last week of September. Local leaders had told Khattar to focus on the other parts of the state and forget about Karnal. Party leaders had assured him of a hefty campaign and a comfortable victory.

In 2014, when the city voted for him as an MLA, he received 58.78 percent of votes and won with a margin of 63,773 votes. The voter turnout was 67.80 percent in the city. While in 2019 elections, Khattar bagged away 63.72 percent of total votes and won with a margin of 45,188  votes. But the victory margin of one lakh couldn’t be achieved.     

  

The voter turnout in the state was 63.84 percent but only 52.29 percent of voters cast their votes in Karnal. BJP has built strong cadre nationally, its panna pramukh and the RSS workers insure that voters come out to vote on the polling day.  

“Many of us were away from the polling booths on the voting day but we helped the genuine leaders in many segments, who fought as independents but were denied the ticket,” said Rajesh Lamba, an RSS worker from Karnal.  

“Yes, ticket distribution was done in the wrong manner. We objected but were sidelined. They didn’t respect the oldest functionaries who asked for some genuine works that may not affect their non-partiality like model. But they didn’t heed to the demands,” he said.

“This is a tight slap on their arrogance”, said Lamba, on being asked about the worst ever voter turnout and failed ‘one lakh plus margin victory’. “You can make roads made of gold but if you don’t respect the party cadre, results will be like this. This party is only left with leaders, not party workers.”

There were several RSS workers like Lamba who rather didn’t vote for an opposition candidate and act like a rebel, but chose to stay away from the electoral process. However, many supported the BJP rebels, who were denied tickets despite clean track-record and had a reach cutting across the castes. Senior BJP leaders considered close to Khattar were given responsibilities to convince such workers who may harm the party.   

“I was assigned the task to convince the angry functionaries in few assembly segments where we witnessed resentments. I along with few senior leaders went door-to-door to hold meetings round-the-clock and asked them to forget about the past and continue to support the party,” former union minister and senior BJP leader Shashi Pal Mehta said. “Few supported but many chose to stay away. But I don’t think this was a collective decision.”

Meanwhile, on the lower voter turnout, local leadership is yet to set any accountability. While, few days before voting, local administration sensed that voters may stay away from polling booths due to three consecutive holidays but rumors were also doing rounds on a clear victory for Khattar. Voters might have thought that their one vote may not matter in front of his comfortable victory from Karnal, said a local journalist.     

On his first visit to his constituency after taking over reigns of Chief Minister for the second term, Khattar said, “There are several reasons for this lower turnout. Firstly, the polling held on Monday after two consecutive holidays led to carelessness by urban voters but we can't bound them to vote, it's their choice. Secondly, women voters of urban areas observe fast of Hoi Mata and generally gets free by 4 or 5 in the evening. We will analyze shortcomings from our side too.”