Congress’ Haryana in-charge Deepak Babaria offers to quit after party loses state elections

Congress’ Haryana in-charge Deepak Babaria on Monday said he has offered to resign from his post, taking moral responsibility for the party’s dismal performance in the recently concluded Assembly elections in the state.

The announcement comes after the party held several meetings to discuss the party’s performance in the election and the reason behind the disappointing defeat.

“Last week, after the results, I offered to resign. I offered to the high command that you can replace me. My health is not well and also it is my moral responsibility in the wake of the results. Keeping that in mind, I had told this to the high command that ‘if you deem fit, you can replace me’,” Babaria told PTI.

“After the Lok Sabha polls also, I had offered to resign as in-charge of Delhi, but no decision has been taken on that. Similarly, no decision has been taken (for Haryana), but it was my responsibility to offer (to resign),” he said.

Last Thursday, the Congress top brass held a review meeting on the party’s shock defeat in the Haryana Assembly polls and decided to form a fact-finding team that would speak to all its candidates to find out the reasons for the debacle.

Sources said the leaders discussed the possible reasons for the “unexpected” results in Haryana during the meeting and decided to set up a team to ascertain the reasons behind such results and also investigate complaints of “discrepancies” in EVMs, as alleged by party candidates.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary organisation KC Venugopal, AICC senior observers for the polls Ashok Gehlot and Ajay Maken, and AICC secretaries for the state participated in the review meeting. AICC, in charge of Haryana Babaria, joined the meeting online.

Congress has also demanded a thorough probe into “discrepancies” found in some electronic voting machines (EVMs) during the vote in the Haryana polls and that such EVMs 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 K C Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Ajay Maken, and Pawan Khera, as well as Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan, met with top Election Commission officials on Wednesday.

The Congress leaders alleged that there are at least 20 such complaints, many referring to EVMs functioning at 99 per cent battery capacity. In contrast, the average EVM was found to be operating at 60 to 70 per cent battery capacity during the counting.

The Congress appeared confident of dislodging the BJP dispensation, which had been in power for ten years and was facing anti-incumbency.

However, the BJP, with 48 seats, halted the Congress’ comeback attempt and proved several exit polls wrong, which had predicted a comfortable win for the grand old party in Haryana. The Congress managed to muster 37 seats in the 90-member assembly.