People waiting for their turn to cast vote.
| Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

Successful candidates in the recent Haryana Assembly election won their seats with an average vote share of 48% of the total votes polled; this was higher than in the 2019 election when winners garnered an average vote share of 44%.

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When all registered voters are considered, the winning candidates won their seats with an average 33% share, meaning that the new MLAs represent a third of the State’s electorate, on average.

According to an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms and Haryana Election Watch, around 44% of winners swept 50% or more of the total votes polled in their constituency. The other 56% won with less than half of the votes polled. Only three of the winners had a margin of victory of less than 1,000 votes; another three winners had a margin of victory above 30%.

Criminal cases no bar

Of 12 winners with declared criminal cases, 11 won their seats with a vote share of 50% or more. Of the 78 winners with clean backgrounds, only 29 won more than half of the votes polled in their constituencies. Also, eleven of the 12 winners with declared criminal cases won against a runner-up with a clean background; of these, three winners scored a victory margin above 25%.

A whopping 86 winners in the Haryana poll are crorepatis, with a net worth of more than ₹1 crore. Of these, 37 won more than half of the votes polled. Three of the four non-crorepati winners also had a vote share of 50% or above.

Among the 30 re-elected MLAs, none got less than a 30% vote share.

Out of 1,38,91,280 votes polled in the election, only 53,300 (0.38%) were ballots cast for the ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) option. The NOTA button was introduced by the Election Commission in 2013 to give voters the option of rejecting all the candidates in their constituency.