Haryana is one such state. As its Assembly poll is barely nine months away, it is time to look beyond its Lok Sabha poll. The exercise cannot be undertaken without visualising the possible political scenario that may emerge in the state after the Lok Sabha poll and the fate the political parties may meet in the elections.

The four main political parties contesting the state's ten Lok Sabha seats are Congress, INLD-BJP combine, Haryana Janhit Congress (Bhajan Lal) and BSP. Each has claimed that it will win all the ten seats! But unfortunately for them, Haryana does not have forty seats which they could equally share to satisfy their bloated ambitions. Besides, their electoral prospects will be marred by pre-poll uncertainties to which this coalition era usually becomes a victim.

Despite the Hooda-led Congress government's widely acknowledged development record and grant of generous sops and freebies which will have a positive impact on the Congress's electoral prospects, an anti-incumbency sentiment prevails in the state. It may, however, be of some consolation to the ruling party that the intensity and spread of anti-incumbency is not what it normally is after over four years of a government's assuming power. What may, however, prove more costly to the ruling party is its acute and deep-rooted factionalism. Some of its influential leaders including ministers are unhappy over the allotment of party ticket. They are giving vent to their anger by either remaining inactive or covertly opposing certain party candidates.

The INLD-BJP alliance's prospects will largely depend on the extent of its effectiveness in view of the BJP cadres' strong opposition to the party's joining hands with Om Parkash Chautala, BJP's deeply eroded base and Chautala's past behaviour with the state BJP leaders. That Chautala is conscious of his past style of functioning is reflected by his recent public utterances. Addressing election meetings of his party candidate at Sirsa and Fatehabad last week, he said, “Forgive me if my workers, my candidate or I have committed any mistakes in the past”.

Although all the parties have witnessed floor crossings by some of their leaders which may not affect their electoral prospects in any significant way, Bhajan Lal's HJC will see the adverse impact of the largescale exodus of its leaders to join other parties, particularly the Congress. The HJC's political future will largely depend on whether its patriarch is able to win from his home turf of Hisar.

The BSP will be marking its maiden presence in Lok Sabha from Haryana if it bags Gurgaon seat from where it has put up the influential Meo candidate Zakir Hussain as its candidate. Interestingly, nine of the BSP's Haryana candidates chosen by Mayawati under her social engineering formula are self-declared crorepatis.

If the ruling party's score is of over half a dozen seats -though it will be short of its 2004 tally of nine seats- it will be treated as reasonable performance. It will then give it the option of going in for early Assembly elections in Haryana. But the exercise of this option will depend largely on whether the UPA also returns to power at the Centre. In 1972, the Bansi Lal-led Haryana's Congress government preferred to go in for mid-term poll only after the Congress's massive victory in the Parliament's mid-term elections which Indira Gandhi chose to hold in 1971 after the Bangladesh war.

An impressive Congress win in Haryana's Lok Sabha poll and a return of UPA rule will put a question mark on the survival of INLD-BJP alliance. The state's BJP cadres, whatever are left, are then bound to seek parting of ways with the INLD, a demand the central BJP leadership will find it hard to ignore.

However, in the event of the INLD-BJP alliance, which is the only political alternative to the Congress in Haryana, scoring an impressive win in the state's Lok Sabha elections, a mid-term poll in the state will be ruled out. In case the NDA also comes to power at the Centre, the Congress will be committing political harakiri if it opts for a mid-term poll. And in the 2010 Assembly elections, the alliance will emerge as a formidable challenger to the Congress in the state.

An NDA victory at the Centre will lead to better INLD-BJP ties in Haryana thus signaling a new phase in Haryana politics which will influence the outcome of the state's Assembly elections to be held in early 2010.

Haryana politics is heading for interesting times.#