'Postmortem being done': Gehlot on Congress's Haryana election debrief
Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot announced on Friday that Congress leadership has decided to create a platform for a thorough examination of the issues that contributed to the disappointing results in Haryana, which he described as "surprising." "Postmortem is being done...A meeting was held yesterday where Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge decided that a platform will be set up for all our candidates—both winning and losing—along with state leaders, to delve deep and assess what...happened," Gehlot said.
Gehlot expresses disbelief over election results
Gehlot also expressed his shock at the election results, which everyone expected would go in Congress's favor. "The entire country was watching that Congress was winning. But what happened suddenly? Surprising results came in," he said. He admitted that factionalism, overconfidence, caste equations could be reasons but stressed that a detailed analysis of these reasons is required before jumping to any conclusion.
Congress forms fact-finding team post-election
The Congress leadership has now decided to form a fact-finding team to investigate the reasons behind their performance and address complaints of discrepancies in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) raised by several Congress candidates. "We held a review meeting on Haryana election results... The results were unexpected," said Ajay Maken after the meeting. Despite high hopes, the Congress secured only 37 seats in the 90-member Assembly, falling short of expectations and exit poll predictions.
Congress to investigate allegations of 'internal' sabotage
The Congress party will also look into allegations of "internal" sabotage as part of their post-election analysis. The fact-finding committee will verify claims of EVM manipulation and has already approached the Election Commission of India alleging discrepancies in some EVMs. Political experts have suggested that factors such as factionalism, overconfidence and lack of organizational structure at the grassroots level may have contributed to the party's defeat.
