‘All absurd’: Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Selja’s allegations, Haryana poll outcome

Bhupinder Singh Hooda

Terming the results of the Haryana election “bizarre”, senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda denied influencing the ticket distribution for the Assembly polls.

Speaking to Indian Express, Hooda said the Congress was all set to form the government. “I had been saying this not due to any over-confidence but only due to the feedback that we were getting from the ground. All the surveys, our own internal surveys, the trends, media, people’s voices – how could everybody go wrong? All I can say is that it is a prajatantra, a loktantra jisme log haar gaye, tantra jeet gaya (In a democracy, people lost and the system won),” said Hooda.

He also rubbished Congress MP Kumari Selja’s allegation that the ticket distribution was lopsided. According to him, there is a proper procedure that the Congress followed. Hooda said applications were invited and the scrutiny committee scanned the applications. “Winnable candidates were shortlisted and then after getting scrutinised at multiple levels, the party high command took the final decision and the candidates were declared. How could it be lopsided at my behest,” he told IE.

The Congress leader also said Selja’s absence from the campaign did not affect the poll outcome. “This is all absurd. Where was Rambilas Sharma (BJP’s former minister who was not fielded this time in Mahendragarh), where did (BJP’s former minister) Anil Vij campaign, where was (Union Minister) Rao Inderjit Singh? The BJP doesn’t talk about its own factionalism. There is nothing like that (in the Congress). Our campaign was strong and all the party leaders and workers did their best,” said Hooda.

He also denied that the Congress relied more on Jat voters and BJP managed to consolidate non-Jat vote banks. “Such an analysis or comparison between Congress and BJP has no base. We got the support of all the 36-biraadaris. People from all communities, castes and religions voted for the Congress party. Otherwise, how could we have got 39 per cent vote share? [BJP won 48 seats and got a vote share of 39.94 per cent, while Congress got 37 seats and a vote share of 39.09 per cent]. People should look at the difference in vote share. It is a few decimal points,” Hooda told IE.

According to him, all the surveys showed a comfortable victory of the Congress with an absolute majority. “On October 8, the counting of votes began with postal ballots and Congress was comfortably far ahead of the BJP. But, as soon as the EVMs opened, Congress began sliding. How could that be possible? We received multiple complaints, at least 20 of our candidates have lodged complaints of EVM malfunction or snags in the EVMs. How could there be 99% battery in the EVM that is into the counting process,” he told IE.

Hooda said the Congress has approached the Election Commission which assured the party that it would look into the matter.