Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: A day after calling the Haryana results “unexpected” and that they were analysing it, top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday told senior functionaries that leaders put their interests above party’s interests in the state leading to the debacle.
Rahul’s remarks came at a meeting at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence where party’s senior observers Ashok Gehlot and Ajay Maken gave a preliminary analysis of the Haryana outcome where a decision was taken to form a fact-finding panel to look into results.
The meeting, which was also attended by Congress General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal, discussed ways to take forward the complaints about “glaring discrepancies” in the EVM. The fact-finding committee will speak to candidates in this regard while state leadership is likely to interact with central leaders soon.
Later in the evening, a statement issued by the office of the Congress president said there have been “numerous baseless source based news circulating in the media”. It asked the media to “desist from any conjectures that deviate from the official brief”.
Sources said Rahul told them that he has nothing much to say except that the party's interests were kept second while leaders’ interests remained on top, which led to the party being defeated for the third time since 2014 in Assembly elections. After the meeting in an unusual move, Rahul also came to the Congress headquarters where he met party workers.
Rahul has been upset with the Haryana leadership and had expressed his reservations about the way the campaign was held. After the results, Rahul took almost 24 hours to make his first comment on Haryana polls when he said they were analysing the “unexpected” results and would apprise the Election Commission about the complaints raised by some candidates.
During the candidate selection process, sources said Rahul had taken initiative to reopen discussions in the Central Election Committee after initially concluding it, after he received complaints from Kumari Selja, Randeep Surjewala and Ajay Yadav, who are known Bhupinder Hooda detractors.
He was also said to be upset with the way the campaigning was held. Incidentally, Rahul was not present at the launch of seven guarantees for Haryana on September 18, apparently unhappy over the way leaders were announcing guarantees at their whims and fancies without proper debate.
After the meeting, Gehlot said they were taking the loss “very seriously” and they would go to the root of the issue, as exit polls and the public were saying in one voice that the Congress would form the government.
Maken told reporters that there are several reasons, including the allegations of discrepancies in EVMs and factionalism, and all those would be discussed
Haryana Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here
J&K Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here
Assembly Elections 2024 | In the first assembly polls since the Lok Sabha elections, Narendra Modi and the BJP defeated a rejuvenated and vindicated Opposition in the Haryana assembly polls. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir voted after almost a decade, giving a decisive mandate to the National Conference-Congress alliance. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.
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