Why A Narrow 32-Vote Win in Jat-Dominated Uchana Kalan Shows BJP Got Jat Votes Too in Haryana

Uchana Kalan, a Jat-dominated seat in Haryana with 50 per cent population of the community, proved to be the bell-weather seat in the assembly elections, with the BJP winning it by the narrowest margin of 32 votes, contrary to what all election pundits had predicted.

The result in Uchana Kalan also busted the perception that BJP would not get any Jat votes as Congress’s Jat face, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, was the presumptive chief ministerial contender. The result here ended the history of Jat family dynasty reigning supreme on the seat as well as the ‘third force’ in the state’s political landscape.

BJP’s Devender Chatar Bhuj Attri won from Uchana Kalan by 32 votes, defeating Congress candidate Brijendra Singh. The sitting MP and JJP supremo, Dushyant Singh Chautala, finished fifth from the seat, behind two independents.

Both Brijendra Singh and Dushyant Chautala are prominent Jat faces of Haryana.

The seat has seen historical contests in the past and has been the bastion of both the Chautala family as well as the family of Brijendra Singh whose father Chaudhary Birender Singh was twice the MP from here from the Congress.

Birender Singh had shifted to the BJP under the Narendra Modi government before returning to the Congress fold a few months ago. His wife Premlata Singh had won the seat for the BJP in 2014, and had returned to the Congress fold along with her husband this April.

In 2019, Dushyant Chautala wrested back the seat which his grandfather Om Prakash Chautala had won in 2009. Dushyant went on to become the deputy chief minister after tying up with the BJP.

This time, however, the people of Uchaana Kalan punished Dushyant Chautala by pushing him to the fifth position, while the clan of Chaudhary Birender Singh could also not win their traditional seat.

Apart from Uchana Kalan, which falls in Jind district and comes under the Hisar Lok Sabha constituency, BJP won some other Jat-dominated seats in Haryana too — a factor that has helped them reach their highest-ever mark of 48 assembly seats in the state.