Chandigarh: Ever since the exit polls rightfully predicted a rout for the Congress party, a blamegame began among party ranks for not having an impactful campaigning in Haryana. Party leaders from Delhi and other states who had campaigned in the state blamed the internal tiff between the Pradesh Congress Committee and Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s camp for incompetent campaigning.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul have proven to be ineffective following the internal tiff and the failure of the Hooda government. In fact, the BJP even breached Hooda’s stronghold Rohtak.
Congress leaders claimed the PCC failed to organise rallies to woo voters and turn the tide in their favour. “The management of the PCC was bad, following which they didn’t even utilise the party leaders who were working hard for the party,” said a senior Congress leader. The leaders also claimed that observers appointed in the state to help the party win were the ones who themselves had lost elections in the past with huge margins.
“People who have been losing elections themselves can’t come up with useful observations. The selection of observers and even candidates was not based on the merit,” said a senior party leader from the national capital on the request of anonymity.
The tiff between PCC president Ashok Tanwar, a confidant of the party high command, and CM Hooda has been out in the open for long. Earlier, this month Tanwar had threatened to resign over the list of candidates. He was apparently unhappy with the domination of Hooda in the selection of candidates. He was not in approval of the party candidates for Dabwali and Rania in Sirsa district.
The candidatures he opposed were that of K.V. Singh and Ranjit Singh. Mr Hooda’s camp had argued that the duo could give a tough fight to the Indian National Lok Dal.
The Congress fought a 10-year- anti-incumbency in the state. The party got just one seat in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP will form the government in Haryana for the first time ever. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had campaigned extensively, addressing 11 rallies.
In the outgoing Assembly, Congress had 40 seats, BJP had only four, INLD 31 and HJC 6 and others had 9.
