After Congress’ humiliating defeat in Lok Sabha polls, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Sunday said that the party will fight the upcoming State Assembly elections unitedly.
Amidst growing clamour for a revamp of the party’s organisational structure and change of guard in Haryana, Hooda held a meeting of his loyalists in New Delhi on Sunday. Besides 11 MLAs of his group, former MLAs, his son Deepender Hooda and other senior party leaders had attended the meeting.
He asked his supporters to get into election mode for Haryana Assembly polls due to be held later this year.
During the meeting, the two-time former Chief Minister also asked the party workers to send him suggestions to be executed ahead of the assembly elections.
The Modi factor which worked in Lok Sabha polls will not work in Haryana Assembly elections. The assembly elections will be held on state’s issues and failures of the current BJP regime in the state, he said.
The BJP led Haryana Government has turned out to be complete failure on law and order front and people of the state will give a befitting reply to the ruling party in the upcoming elections, he added.
“There is no place for dejection. During the past four-and-a-half years, Congress has been fighting for the rights and raising the voice of Dalits, traders, employees, youths, women and other sections. We have been fighting their battle, which has entered a decisive phase now,” Hooda further said.
“Congress is the only real opposition left in the state as people have rejected other parties. Time has come to throw out this government, which only made tall promises, but failed to perform,” he told his supporters.
The former Chief Minister added, “In his long political career he has seen how quickly political circumstances can change and cited the example of Aam Aadmi Party, which swept Delhi assembly elections barely weeks after the BJP had put up a stupendous performance in the 2014 LS polls.”
The meet also impressed upon the party high command to take necessary steps needed to further strengthen the party in the state.
While talking to the mediapersons, Hooda said that two resolutions were passed in the meeting -- one requesting party president Rahul Gandhi to not resign from the post and second - the party should fight unitedly the upcoming Assembly elections.”
“The results of the Lok Sabha elections were also discussed in the meeting,” he added.
Haryana, where 90-Assembly seats are at stake, is scheduled to go to polls in October this year. Currently, the Congress has 17 MLAs in the State Assembly.
Notably, the Congress had failed to win even a single seat out of a total of 10 Lok Sabha constituencies in Haryana in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls. To make things worse, it also ceded the Rohtak seat, where in 2014 Deepender Hooda had managed to buck the Narendra Modi wave.
Bhupinder Hooda had himself lost the Lok Sabha poll which he contested from Sonepat seat.
The party’s vote share had however increased to 28.42 percent (3604106) this time from 22.9 percent in 2014 general elections in Haryana.
Following party’s resounding defeat, the internal bickering in Haryana Congress had came out in the open at a meeting called by Congress' general secretary-incharge of Haryana Ghulam Nabi Azad last week in New Delhi.
The MLAs loyal to Hooda had pressed for a leadership change in Haryana over the party's failure to win any of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state They had also mentioned that the party has lost last three polls – Lok Sabha and assembly elections in 2014 and the recent general elections – under state party chief Ashok Tanwar’s leadership.