Candidates tell AICC panel: Factionalism, lack of poll plan led to defeat

Smarting under the stunning defeat at the hands of the Bharatiya Janta Party, Congress candidates have alleged complete mismanagement of elections, a missing general secretary, lack of coordination amongst leaders and mistrust in the EVMs.

Speaking to two of the three members of the fact-finding committee constituted by the AICC to go into the reasons for the Congress failing to get to the majority mark in the recently concluded Haryana Assembly election, the candidates — some of whom spoke to The Tribune — said that they gave their feedback to senior leaders Harish Chaudhary and Bhupesh Baghel over the past two days.

The feedback exercise which started from Kalka (constituency number 1) and covered segments right up to Tigaon (constituency number 90) was conducted either through zoom meetings or on phone and the interaction lasted up to 10 minutes for each candidate.

The committee members asked the candidates about the reasons for the defeat of the party in the constituency (if the candidate lost), the support they got during the election from the AICC and the Pradesh Congress Committee and their experience of the EVMs.

According to the information available, the candidates said that they pointed out lack of a poll plan, the absence of organisational structure at the grassroots, the unpreparedness of the party with regard to programmes of senior central leaders, the public display of factionalism during the election, the overdependence on the Jat votes resulting in distancing of the party from other castes and the over-confidence since the party began the campaign on a high given the Lok Sabha results (the Congress and the BJP won five seats each) among many other reasons.

At least half a dozen candidates raised questions about the credibility of EVMs, narrating their own reasons for doubting the machines. “It is not possible that every other person in a constituency voted for the BJP,” an aide of a candidate explained while another is learnt to have raised objections on the basis of the poor vote percentage of villages which “owe allegiance” to the Congress.

Also, some of them, belonging to former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s faction, appreciated his involvement with their personal campaigns as well, emphasising that he even offered to handle “tricky” villages and people for them even though he was contesting an election.

Speaking to The Tribune, Chaudhary said that they had spoken to quite a few of the candidates for feedback though he did not mention that the exercise has concluded. “There was no mandate from the party to submit a report of the feedback we took. The party will let us know what we are supposed to do further,” the leader stated.