Despite falling short by 14 seats to get the magic figure in the 90-member Haryana Assembly, the Congress is hopeful of forming the government in the state with the support of Dushyant Chautala’s JJP and Independents (mostly BJP turncoats), party leaders said yesterday.
Senior Congress leader Ambika Soni said that the party will try to form the government in the state. She was addressing the media at Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi’s residence.
Soni had come to attend the meeting of senior party leaders to discuss the Congress’ stand on several important issues like Citizenship Amendment Act, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the crucial winter session of Parliament.
Also present were former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, K C Venugopal, Rajeev Satav, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh, A K Antony, Sushmita Deb, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Ambika Soni, Ahmed Patel, Mallikarjuna Kharge, Anand Sharma, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Mohsina Kidwai.
Leader of the party in Lok Sabha, Chowdhury, also lauded his party’s poll run in Harayana, and termed the results as “encouraging”.
Scindia, who is also the chairman of the Maharashtra Screening Committee described the results good in both Haryana and Maharashtra and congratulated the party workers for putting the hard work in the assembly polls.
In Haryana, the ruling BJP emerged as the single largest party by winning 40 seats, but fell short of the halfway mark by five seats.
The Congress, on the other hand, showed significant progress from its performance in the last Assembly elections by winning 31 seats. It had got 15 in the 2014 Assembly polls.
The BJP got 36.49% votes, while the Congress bagged 28.08 per cent votes.
The nearly year-old Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) was victorious in 10 constituencies, making it a possible kingmaker, along with seven Independents
The Congress yesterday also slammed the BJP for being in talks with independent legislator Gopal Kanda to form the government in Haryana saying it shows their “double standards” and hunger for power.
Party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said, “you should look at the statements made by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah at a time when Gopal Kanda was a minister in the state.”
Surjewala said that the Congress had forced Kanda to resign after the registration of a case against him. “We also removed him from the ministership. But what was the stance of BJP then? And what’s the kind of double speak the BJP is doing today. This shows their level of hunger for power,” he said.
Surjewala’s remarks came a day after Kanda arrived in Delhi and announced his support to the BJP. Earlier former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti urged the party leadership not to take Kanda’s support.
Bharti said that the party should take support from leaders with a clean image. In a series of tweets, Bharti said, “I have been informed that Kanda has offered his support to us. Gopal Kanda is accused of abetting the suicide of a girl, whose mother also committed suicide after failing to get justice. The matter is sub judice. He is out on bail. Whether Kanda is guilty or not, will be decided after due legal process. However, his election victory doesn’t give him a clean chit. There are several factors associated with an election victory. I urge BJP not to forget moral values,” she tweeted.
Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) chief Dushyant Chautala accompanied by Haryana party president Nishant Singh addresses a press conference in New Delhi yesterday.
