BJP makes impressive comeback in Haryana, wins 7, Cong routed

After a 15-year gap, BJP riding on 'Modi wave' made an impressive comeback in Haryana winning seven of the eight seats it contested as ruling Congress faced a rout with five of its sitting MPs tasting defeat.
However, BJP's ally the Haryana Janhit Congress-BL (HJC) lost both the seats - Hisar and Sirsa - it contested, with HJC chief and sitting MP Kuldeep Bishnoi suffering a humiliating defeat in Hisar at the hands of Dushyant Chautala of INLD.
BJP won the seven seats of Ambala (SC), Kurukshetra, Karnal, Sonipat, Faridabad, Gurgaon and Bhiwani Mahendargarh.
INLD won the two seats of Sirsa (SC) and Hisar while Congress had to contend itself with retention of Rohtak seat.

The only saving grace for Congress for Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was winning the stronghold Rohtak, from where his son and sitting MP Deepender Singh Hooda (35) scored a hat-trick defeating his nearest BJP rival O P Dhankar by a margin of 1,70,627 votes, which, however, was down from his 2009's margin of nearly 4.45 lakh votes.
What hurt Congress further was its candidates finishing at number three spot in four seats that included two sitting MPs.

New entrant AAP, which had fielded its candidates in all the 10 seats, failed to open account and among the prominent losers was Yogendra Yadav from Gurgaon.

INLD, which contested the polls independently, with party chief Om Prakash Chautala and his son Ajay Singh Chautala behind the bars serving a jail sentence, opened its account after a gap of 15 years winning two seats - Hisar and Sirsa (SC) - which would come as a morale booster for the party ahead of the upcoming state assembly elections.
For HJC, the defeat of Bishnoi , younger son of former Chief Minister late Bhajan Lal, at the hands of greenhorn and fourth-generation leader of the Devi Lal family, Dushyant Chautala (26) was unexpected.
Bishnoi lost by a margin of 31,847 votes.

The poll results today may also increase the worries of Congress as the state Assembly elections are due in October this year.
Earlier, Chief Minister Hooda had described the Lok Sabha polls as the "semi-final" to the Assembly polls.
Five of Congress's sitting MPs in Haryana including state unit chief Ashok Tanwar (Sirsa-SC), Naveen Jindal (Kurukshetra), Arvind Sharma (Karnal), Shruti Choudhary (Bhiwani-Mahendergarh) and Avtar Singh Bhadana (Faridabad) lost, with Shruti and Jindal finishing third.