New Delhi: The Congress top brass, headed by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, held a meeting on Thursday to review the party's "shock" defeat in the Haryana Assembly polls and discuss the possible reasons for the "unexpected" results. The party is all set to constitute a fact-finding team to ascertain the causes of failure.
Mr Kharge, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary organisation K.C. Venugopal, AICC senior observers for the polls Ashok Gehlot and Ajay Maken, as well as AICC secretaries for the state, participated in the review meeting. AICC in-charge of state Deepak Babaria joined the meeting online.
"We held a review meeting on the Haryana election results. As you all know, 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," Mr Maken told the media after the meeting.
Asked if infighting had hurt the Congress' chances in the Haryana polls, Mr Maken said, "There are various reasons, from the Election Commission to internal differences. We have discussed all that and will do so in the future as well because such a big upset... We cannot discuss everything in one or one-and-a-half hours."
Later in a release from the Congress president’s office, the party stated that it has decided to depute a technical team to look into complaints of discrepancies pointed out by its candidates.
The Congress leaders alleged that there are at least 20 such complaints, including seven in writing from as many Assembly constituencies, with many referring to EVMs functioning at 99 per cent battery capacity, whereas the average EVMs were found to be operating at 60 to 70 per cent battery capacity during the counting.
On Wednesday, a delegation of top Congress leaders comprising former chief ministers Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Mr Gehlot, Mr Venugopal, Mr Maken, along with senior party leaders Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera, besides Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan, met with top Election Commission officials in the national capital on Wednesday.
The delegation had handed over a memorandum to the officials along with specific complaints from various constituencies in Haryana.
