Cong mulls over poll verdict in Haryana

MLAs leave decision on chief minister to Sonia

The incumbent Congress fell six short of the majority mark in the 90-member House which has triggered a frenetic race among the leadership to rope in independents to prop up a government.

As the slugfest for the Congress’ chief ministerial candidate moved to Delhi durbar on Friday evening after the newly elected MLAs left the decision to party chief Sonia Gandhi, the anti-Bhupinder Singh Hooda lobby has intensified its campaign to prevent his coronation as chief minister for the second time.

This lobby led by Union minister Kumari Selja and aided by ministers in the Hooda’s previous Cabinet, Kiran Choudhary, Captain Ajay Yadav and Randeep Surjewala and MP Rao Inderjit have sharpened their knives holding Hooda’s “overconfidence” and “differential development” as reasons for the party’s poor showing. They are alleging that Hooda’s insistence on giving tickets to his cronies, many of them incumbent MLAs, and some others inducted from other parties, had resulted in the party’s poor show, as the electors were not happy with the performance of many legislators.

When chief minister Hooda prevailed upon the party high command in August to recommend dissolution of the Assembly seven months before term, he was hoping to ride on the party’s spectacular performance in the Lok Sabha polls less than six months ago and also the fact of near-total annihilation of the Opposition parties. The Congress had won nine out of ten parliamentary seats in May.

“In its euphoric state of mind, the state leadership failed to notice the fact that issues in a general election and an Assembly election are different. It failed to convince the voters on the rising prices of commodities, power shortage and the impact of drought,” a state Congress leader said on condition of anonymity.

Another leader, known for his opposition to Hooda, squarely blamed the chief minister for concentrating solely on the Rohtak belt for development works.In fact, the Opposition parties too had raised the stink against Hooda during campaigning for ignoring rest of the state. Interestingly, Rohtak parliamentary constituency is represented by Hooda’s son Deepinder while Hooda’s own Assembly constituency lies near Jhajjar.