Show of strength: 31 of 37 Haryana Congress MLAs meet Hooda ahead of CLP leader election

New Delhi: In a major show of strength ahead of the Congress Legislature Party meeting in Haryana, 31 party MLAs met former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and extended their support to him.

Sources said the Congress MLAs from Haryana felicitated Hooda at his residence here and expressed their desire that he be their leader in the state assembly after the party failed to wrest power in the state.

This is the first time the Congress MLAs met after the party lost the Haryana assembly elections by winning only 37 out of 90 seats in the state, according to the sources.

Among some of the newly elected MLAs who were present at Hooda's residence included Nirmal Singh, Aftab Ahmed, Vinesh Phogat, Bharat Bhushan Batra, Geeta Bhukkal, Raghubir Kadian and Mamman Khan, among others, the sources said.

After the Congress' debacle in Haryana, a section of leaders is seeking to oust Hooda as the leader of the party and wants the younger generation to take over.

However, with the show of strength on Wednesday, Hooda does not seem to be in a mood to give in to his detractors and appears to be very much in the saddle.

The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting in Haryana is slated on Friday in Chandigarh to elect its new leader.

Top Congress leaders -- former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, AICC treasurer Ajay Maken and Punjab CLP leader Partap Singh Bajwa -- have been appointed as central observers to attend the CLP meeting in Haryana.

These observers have also been asked to speak with all the MLAs and seek their opinion on who their new leader should be.

Another fact-finding committee has been set up by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, which includes former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, former Rajasthan minister Harish Chaudhary and party leader S Senthil, to ascertain the reasons of defeat in Haryana and also dwell on complaints of discrepancies in EVMs, as alleged by party candidates.

The Congress had complained to the EC about "discrepancies" in the battery of EVMs during counting for Haryana assembly polls on October 8.

The opposition party has also presented complaints of its leaders in at least 20 assembly constituencies about the alleged discrepancies. The leaders alleged that the EVMs showed a battery of over 90 to 99 per cent in which the BJP candidates fared well.

The Congress candidates have claimed that they got more votes in those EVMs where the battery was less than 90 per cent.

The Congress' vote share was 39.09 per cent against the BJP's 39.94 per cent.