Congress Plays Down Delay In Appointing New Haryana Team After Poll Loss

Party managers said the high command will decide the issue after state elections.

New Delhi:The Congress played down the delay in appointing a new CLP leader in Haryana after the recent poll loss and said the high command will decide the issue after the Maharashtra and Jharkhand elections.

The Congress was expected to appoint a new CLP leader after suffering a poll loss before the start of the first session of the new assembly on November 13 but could not decide the issue as the central leadership got buy with the two state elections.

Another reason for the delay was the ongoing review of the poll loss which had shocked the high command. The Congress managers had made the high command believe that the party was set to sweep the Assembly elections after being in the opposition for ten years but the Congress ended with 37 out of 90 seats, nine short of the simple majority needed to form a government.

Factional fights between senior leaders like former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda, Lok Sabha MP Kumari Selja and Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Surjewala besides the presence of rebels on several seats had been identified as the main cause behind the Congress results in Haryana but the high command wanted to go to the root cause of the matter and had set up a separate panel to probe the outcome.

The probe report was expected to become the basis of the revamp of the state team including a new CLP leader and a new Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief.

"The CLP leader will be named after the state elections. There is no delay. This happens sometimes. The high command is busy with the elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand and would take up Haryana once they are free," All India Campaign Committee (AICC) in-charge of Haryana Dipak Babaria told ETV Bharat.

According to the AICC functionary, no probe report had been submitted to him but some senior leaders had been asked to look into the complaints of election irregularities on the polling day by the state workers.

"Senior leader Karan Dalal is looking into the irregularities that had been reported during the elections," said Babaria.

Earlier, the Congress managers had lodged a complaint over the alleged irregularities with the Election Commission which later rejected the charges as baseless and rebuked the grand old party.

The Congress had alleged that EVMs in many places were found to be 99 per cent charged even after a full day of voting which was unusual.

Subsequently, the Congress managers got busy with holding a meeting of the newly elected MLAs who had passed a one-line resolution authorising the Congress president to decide the name of the new CLP leader.

During the CLP meeting, AICC observers including ex-Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, AICC Treasurer Ajay Maken and Punjab CLP leader Partap Singh Bajwa had explored the names who had the support of majority MLAs.

Hooda has been the CLP leader for the past 10 years and had brought in his loyalist Udai Bhan as PCC chief two years ago to reboot the Congress in the BJP-ruled state but was accused by Kumari Selja, Randeep Surjewala and others of taking unilateral decisions and being partial.

After Udai Bhan also offered to resign, the high command will appoint a new state unit chief, said party insiders. According to the party insiders, the Congress politics in Haryana had been dominated by the influential Jat community for long but failed to win the crucial state election.

This may impact the decision on two key posts said party insiders adding Congress may also look at some new faces to revamp the Haryana unit.