Rahul Gandhi with Bhupinder Hooda and Kumari Selja on stage during an election rally in Haryana NEW DELHI: The Congress has failed yet again in a direct electoral contest with the BJP - this time in Haryana. The grand-old-party which was confident, rather overconfident, of sweeping the Haryana assembly elections riding on anti-incumbency against 10 years of BJP rule, could manage to win only 37 seats. The ruling BJP, on the other hand, scripted history by scoring a record hat-trick in the state.
Led by chief minister Nayab Singh Saini , the BJP has registered its best-ever performance in the state winning 48 seats, one more than its tally in 2014. So, what went wrong for the Congress? There could be many factors that led to party's dismal show. However, one of the biggest reasons was perhaps the factionalism in the state unit.
The Congress leadership allowed former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to take complete control of election strategy and campaign. In the process, it ignored the claims of other senior leaders of the state - particularly Kumari Selja , who is a prominent dalit face of the Congress. Selja was clearly unhappy with the dominance of Hooda in ticket distribution and stayed away from party's campaign for most part of the elections.
The BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were quick to cite "sulking Selja" to accuse the Congress of disrespecting dalits in the party. At one point there were even reports of Selja dumping the Congress to joi.