Congress discusses possible reasons for Haryana setback

Congress Working Commitee to meet next week for a more detailed analysis of the party’s “unexpected” results in Haryana

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday (October 10, 2024) presided over a review meeting on the party’s shock defeat in the Haryana Assembly polls and discussed the possible reasons for the setback.

Next week, on October 17, the party is likely to convene a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) for a more detailed analysis of the party’s “unexpected” results in Haryana.

Besides Mr. Kharge, Thursday’s meeting was attended by Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal and senior observers for the polls Ajay Maken and Ashok Gehlot among others. Congress in-charge of the State Deepak Babaria joined the meeting online.

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

On infighting hurting the party, he said, “There are various reasons, from the Election Commission to internal differences, we have discussed all that, and will do so in future as well because such a big upset...we cannot discuss everything in one or one-and-a-half hour.”

Party’s clarification

Amid reports that the meeting focussed on internal sabotage and the questionable role played by some key party functionaries, the Congress President’s office issued a clarification. “Following Congress party’s meeting today to discuss the results of Haryana elections, there have been numerous baseless source-based news circulating in media....We request you to stick to our formal briefing and desist from any conjectures, that deviate from the official brief,” read a statement issued by party secretary Pranav Jha.

“The party has decided to depute a technical team to look into complaints and discrepancies noted by our candidates. The Congress will issue a detailed response based on the fact-finding team’s report,” the statement added.

The party’s internal meeting comes a day after a Congress delegation called on the Election Commission (EC) to demand a thorough probe into “discrepancies” found in some electronic voting machines (EVMs) during the counting of votes of the Haryana Assembly polls.

Published - October 10, 2024 11:09 pm IST