E-Paper
EVMs to infighting: Congress starts assessing setback in Haryana elections
Soon after the meeting, Kharge’s office issued an unusual communique asking the media to “stick” to the formal briefing and “desist from any conjecture that deviates from the official brief”.
The Congress brass on Thursday began a structured review of the election setback it suffered in Haryana earlier this week, with internal differences over questioning EVMs, the role of the leaders helming the campaign, and even possible sabotage by some leaders in certain seats, emerging as some of the stands in a meeting led by party president Mallikarjun Kharge, according to people aware of the matter.
Soon after the meeting, Kharge’s office issued an unusual communique asking the media to “stick” to the formal briefing and “desist from any conjecture that deviates from the official brief”. Some of the party leaders indicated later that another review will take place when the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meets on October 17.
Thursday’s meeting, chaired by Kharge, was attended by former party chief Rahul Gandhi, general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal, and two Haryana observers — treasurer Ajay Maken and former Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot — among others.
The AICC in-charge of Haryana, Deepak Babaria, joined the meeting virtually. However, Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan, CLP leader and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, or other senior leaders from the state such as Kumari Selja, were not part of the meeting.
Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala, himself a Haryana heavyweight, had submitted his written observations to the leadership ahead of the meeting.
The party, which was heavily tipped to sweep the Haryana elections by pollsters and pundits, ended up winning 37 seats in the 90-member assembly, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to grab 48 seats to claim a historic hat-trick.
Read more: Congress to form technical team to investigate EVM complaints in Haryana
Since the results were declared in Tuesday, multiple reasons for the defeat have emerged from within the Congress camp — irregularities in EVMs, and infighting among the state’s top leaders Hooda and Selja, not least among them.
The discontent among leaders from the state was out in the open even during Thursday’s review meeting, with Ajay Singh Yadav, chairman of the AICC OBC Congress, alleging the party overlooked the OBC belts in Haryana. According to people aware of the matter, he called his post a “jhunjhuna” (toy) and argued that four districts of southern Haryana had no representation at various decision-making bodies of the party in the state. The Congress leaders in the meeting agreed that several measures will have to be put in place in the context of the debacle.
Maken said after the meeting that the party analysed the Haryana election results “at length” . Repeatedly emphasising that there are several issues behind the party’s tepid performance, Maken said: “In your channels, the exit polls were shown but the results were unexpected. Nobody thought such results will come that would be entirely different from the exit polls. We discussed the possible reasons of this defeat. We will also take measures.”
When asked if internal differences were a key factor, Maken said: “From the Election Commission (ostensible EVM discrepancies) to internal differences… there are many issues.”
The office of Congress president later issued a formal statement.
“The party has decided to depute a Technical Team to look into complaints and discrepancies noted by our candidates. Congress party will issue a detailed response based on the fact-finding team’s report,” AICC secretary attached to the Congress president, Pranav Jha, said in the statement.
Some senior leaders, however, criticised the party’s tirade against EVMs and claimed that the need of the hour was to look closely at the main factors behind the setback.
“For past 10 years, our party in Haryana has been leased out to one family. How long can this continue? The family had a say in ticket, in campaign and in formulating the election strategy,” a senior leader said in reference to former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Hooda and his son Deepender Hooda who had helmed the campaign.
