After the massive poll debacle in Haryana, the Congress will form a fact-finding committee that will go into the details of the shock loss in the Assembly polls, sources at the party said. Congress top brass headed by AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge earlier in the day held a review meeting to deliberate on the "unexpected" results.
The Congress president, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary organisation K C Venugopal, AICC senior observers for the polls Ashok Gehlot and Ajay Maken, as well as AICC secretaries for the state, participated in the review meeting at Kharge's 10, Rajaji Marg residence. AICC in-charge of state Deepak Babaria joined the meeting online.
According to Congress sources, it was decided in today's meeting to form a technical team in which the members will talk to all the candidates one on one and submit their report to the high command. Along with this, all the observers were also asked to give their reports to the high command today. After Dussehra, the Congress high command will meet the state leaders.
"We held a review meeting on Haryana election results. As you all know, as the exit polls and opinion polls had shown, the results were unexpected. There was a lot of difference between exit polls and actual results. We discussed what could be the reasons for that. We will take appropriate steps going forward on this," Maken told reporters after the meeting.
Asked if infighting had hurt the Congress' chances in the polls, Maken said, "There are various reasons, from the Election Commission to internal differences, we have discussed all that will do so in future as well because such a big upset. We cannot discuss everything in one or one-and-a-half hours."
The committee will also look into the details of complaints from various constituencies and compile them in a comprehensive manner.
The meeting comes a day after the Congress demanded a thorough probe into "discrepancies" found in some Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during the counting of votes of the Haryana assembly polls and demanded that such EVMs should be sealed and secured pending the inquiry.
A delegation of top Congress leaders comprising former chief ministers Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Ashok Gehlot and AICC leaders Venugopal, Ajay Maken, besides Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan, met with top Election Commission officials here on Wednesday.
(With inputs from Vijay Laxmi)
