Haryana: Congress Trying To Stake Claim To Government With Support From JJP And Independents       

Despite falling short by 14 seats to get the magic figure in the 90-member Haryana Assembly, the Congress is hopeful of forming government in the state with the support of Dushyant Chautala's JJP and Independents (mostly BJP turncoats), party leaders said on Friday (25 October).

Senior Congress leader Ambika Soni said that the party will try to form the government in the state. She was addressing the media at Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi's residence.

Soni had come to attend the meeting of senior party leaders to discuss the Congress' stand on several important issues like Citizenship Amendment Act, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the crucial winter session of Parliament.

Also present were former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, K.C. Venugopal, Rajeev Satav, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh, A.K. Antony, Sushmita Deb, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Ambika Soni, Ahmed Patel, Mallikarjuna Kharge, Anand Sharma, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Mohsina Kidwai.

Leader of the party in Lok Sabha, Chowdhury, also lauded his party's poll run in Harayana, and termed the results as "encouraging".

Scindia, who is also the chairman of the Maharashtra Screening Committee described the results good in both Haryana and Maharashtra and congratulated the party workers for putting the hard work in the assembly polls.

In Haryana, the ruling BJP emerged as the single largest party by winning 40 seats, but fell short of the halfway mark by 5 seats.

The Congress, on the other hand, showed significant progress from its performance in the last Assembly elections by winning 31 seats. It had got 15 in the 2014 Assembly polls.

The BJP got 36.49 per cent votes, while the Congress bagged 28.08 per cent votes.

The nearly year-old Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) was victorious in 10 constituencies, making it a possible kingmaker, along with 7 Independents

In Maharashtra the Congress and NCP alliance won 98 seats, improving its tally in the state by 14 seats. The Congress had won 42 while NCP had won 43 seats in 2014 assembly polls.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)