Congress Top Brass Meets After 'Unexpected' Haryana Results, Bhupinder Hooda Missing

It was decided during the meeting that the party will soon constitute a fact-finding committee that will go into the depth of the surprise setback of the Congress in Haryana.

LoP in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge during a press conference in Srinagar. (Representational Image)

Source : PTI

The Congress on Thursday held a review meeting to deliberate on the "unexpected" results in Haryana elections. The meeting was headed by AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge at his 10, Rajaji Marg residence and was attended by the party's top brass. It was decided during the meeting that the party will soon constitute a fact-finding committee that will go into the depth of the surprise setback of the Congress in Haryana.

The Congress president, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary organisation K C Venugopal, AICC senior observers for the polls Ashok Gehlot and Ajay Maken, and AICC secretaries for the state, participated in the review meeting. AICC in-charge of state Deepak Babaria joined the meeting online. Notably, Congress leader and former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda was missing from the meeting.

"We held a review meeting on Haryana election results. As you all know, as the exit polls and opinion polls had shown, the results were unexpected. There was a lot of difference between exit polls and actual results. We discussed what could be the reasons for that. We will take appropriate steps going forward on this," Maken told reporters after the meeting.

Responding to whether the Congress' chances in the polls were affected due to the infighting, Maken said, "There are various reasons, from the Election Commission to internal differences, we have discussed all that will do so in future as well because such a big upset...we cannot discuss everything in one or one-and-a-half hours."   

Congress will soon announce a a fact-finding committee as party wants to analyse the results. This committee will speak with the party's candidates and leaders and figure out the reasons for the unexpected results. It will also look into the details of complaints received from various constituencies and compile them comprehensively, news agency PTI reported citing sources.

The report also stated that Rahul Gandhi, who broke his silence on the Haryana results on Wednesday, wants an in-depth analysis of the unexpected results be carried out and accountability for the shocking loss be fixed.

The meeting was held a day after the grand old party demanded a thorough probe into the alleged discrepancies found in some Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during the vote counting process. It also demanded that such EVMs should be sealed and secured pending the inquiry.

After the Election Commission approved the party's request for a meeting regarding this matter, a delegation of top Congress leaders including former chief ministers Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Ashok Gehlot, and AICC leaders Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Ajay Maken, and Pawan Khera, met with the poll body officials on Wednesay. Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan was also present in the meeting. Senior party leader Abhishek Singhvi joined the meeting online.

The Congress delegation had handed over a memorandum to the EC officials and submitted specific complaints from various constituencies in Haryana.

The BJP had secured a historic hat-trick with 48 seats, halting the Congress' comeback attempt in Haryana. It defied the exit polls wrong, which had predicted a comfortable win for the Congress in Haryana. The grand old party, however, managed to win just 37 seats in the 90-member assembly.