Chandigarh: Springing a big surprise, the BJP on Tuesday scripted history in Haryana by winning the state assembly election for the third time in a row with its best showing till date.

Its best show emerged from the GT road districts – Panipat, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar and Ambala - where it bagged 20 - 29 of the total seats – an urban vote-base. Caretaker chief minister Nayab Saini, the CM face, comes from Kurukshetra; he won from ladwa.

Quelling the general perception that it hardly had a sway in the Jat heartland – Sonepat, Rohtak and Jind districts - the saffron party managed to win as many four of the total six seats in Sonepat district, one of four, in Rohtak and four out of five seats of Jind.

The BJP took an advantage of the election being multi-corner as its rivals included Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) which had alliance with BSP and Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) which had alliance with Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), besides Congress and several independents. The saffron party thus strategically fielded non-Jat including OBC candidates there; The anti-BJP votes of Jat, Dalit and SC were thus split among Congress, INLD and JJP – an advantage to BJP.

Sample this: In Jat-dominated Gohana seat (Sonepat), BJP’s Arvind Sharma, Brahmin, won by a margin of about 10,000 as Jat votes got divided among Congress’ Jagbir Malik, who got about 46,000 votes; while about 14,000 votes were bagged by independent Jat candidate Harsh Chhikara and over 8,000 votes were polled by Rajbir Dahiya.

Another Jat-dominated Uchana Kalan (district Jind) seat, BJP candidate Devender Atri, a Brahmin, by just 32 votes defeating Congress’ Brijendra Singh (over 48,000 votes) and JJP’s top leader Dushyant Chautala (finished poor fifth with just about 7,900 votes); two independent Jat candidates Virender Ghogharian, bagged 31,000 votes and Vikas Kala, polled 13,000 votes.

Chief minister Nayab Saini, an OBC candidate, also won by a margin of about 16,000 as INLD’s Sapna Barshami, 7,500 Jat votes and Vikram Cheema, an independent, over 11,000 votes, causing defeat to Congress’ sitting MLA Mewa Singh who got about 54,000 votes.

Elsewhere, the BJP won 21 of the total 28 seats in Ahirwal region - Mahendergarh, Bhiwani, Gurugram and Palwal district, which has sway of BJP’s tallest Ahir leader and Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh. In Bangar region – Jind districts, the BJP won four of the total five seats; only star wrestler and Congress nominee Vinesh Phogat won from Julana seat in Jind.

BJP failed to open its account in Sirsa and Nuh (Mewat) districts.

Surprisingly, the BJP which faced a strong anti-incumbency not only silently replaced the then chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar with Saini in March this year but also picked up over 40 new faces this election. Prime minister Narendra Modi, who held four rallies along with several Union ministers also, accused the Congress of pandering lies about Kisan (farmers), Jawan (Agniveer) and Pehalwan (wrestlers or sportspersons), but refrained from speaking on Vinesh Phogat.

However, the BJP voters also appeared to have been "alerted’’ by the poor Lok Sabha results, hence the consolidation of non-Jat votes; another reason behind the dent to Congress share was said to be the internal bickering with Congress which got precipitated as it appeared to be an election by its tall leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda not of the party - the sidelining of tall Dalit leader Kumari Selja in the party also piqued her supporters. These reasons, apart, Haryana has also a tradition of going with the party ruling at Centre as seen during Congress rule as well as INLD when the latter allied with NDA.