Mandate is for BJP in Haryana, Manohar Lal remains popular

Haryana assembly speaker Kanwar Pal Gujjar, who contested from Jagadhiri and is among the few senior Haryana BJP leaders who won this election, spoke to Aman Sharma. Excerpts:

On BJP tally reducing to 40 from 47 seats
The mandate is for BJP in Haryana. We have won 40 seats. We have done work for which people have voted us in again. The five or six independents who have won are all BJP rebels who fought separately due to ticket issues — so in this way, the BJP did get a majority as the independents were our own. Sometimes, there is a mistake in estimates on seats one will win. But the bottom line remains that we got three per cent more vote share than last time, up to over 36% now.


On Congress, JJP claims that they got the mandate
This is laughable as the Congress has won just 31 seats. If the mandate was for Congress, they would have crossed the 45-mark. As far as JJP is concerned, it won 10 seats as the vote bank of INLD shifted to it. INLD as a party is finished. INLD and JJP are the same as JJP emerged from INLD. INLD had won 19 seats in 2014 and JJP has won 10 this time. Also, JJP is now with us in the new government.

On eight out of 10 ministers losing their seats
Maybe these ministers got too busy in running the government and did not pay adequate attention to people in their constituency. There is a delicate balance which must be maintained as a minister — of running the government and attending to people in the constituency.

Though all ministers did very good work in their posts, it is best to not ignore people in your area.

On Manohar Lal’s leadership
It is 100% certain that Manohar Lal will take oath as the chief minister a second time and we will work under his leadership in the state. Lal remains popular — or why would have out vote share gone up? The work he has done as CM — of running a non-corrupt government — was unheard of in Haryana in the past. Jobs were given in the most transparent manner. Still, the new government will look into any shortcomings and improve upon them in the second term.