Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, March 8
With exit polls not painting a very happy picture for the Congress and predicting a close fight in Goa and Uttarakhand, the grand old party rushed to strategize ahead of the election results on March 10.
Top sources told The Tribune that the party has deputed AICC general secretary Rajasthan Ajay Maken and party spokesperson Pawan Khera to meet with all candidates in the state and keep all posted poll strategies and options in place.
The Congress has sent Karnataka party chief DK Shiva Kumar and Maharashtra minister Sunil Kedar to Goa where the exit polls have shown a very close race between the BJP and the Congress giving none a majority in the assembly of 40 where 21 is the majority mark.
In Manipur the party has sent Chhattisgarh health minister TS Singh Deo and party general secretary Mukul Wasnik.
Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda who was deputed for Uttarakhand yesterday had already reached the state.
The Congress does not want to be kept napping in the event of election results across the above states placing it within the striking distance of government formation.
The party is still hopeful of retaining Punjab where all exit polls have given AAP a comfortable win in a house of 117 members with 59 being the majority mark.
Maken and Khera along with state in-charge Harish Choudhary will begin crucial meetings for post poll strategizing today itself. Both will reach Punjab shortly.
Likewise in Goa where exit polls have given both Congress and BJP an average of 16 seats each, winning over MLAs from smaller parties will be the key to government formation, should exit poll results hold.
The Congress doesn’t want to repeat the mistake of 2017 when despite being the single largest party with 17 MLAs it ended up squandering the mandate while the BJP formed the government.
In Uttarakhand, too, the Congress wants to remain pro-active and is hoping for the historical trends to continue.
The state has never voted an incumbent government back since its formation in 2000.
The Congress is expecting to unseat the BJP in Uttarakhand.
In UP, however, the party appears to have conceded defeat with no special observers appointed.
The opinion polls have given the ruling BJP a win in UP where a sitting government hasn’t been repeated in over three decades.
SP and RLD are projected to finish second in UP.
For the Congress, the March 10 results could mean make or break.
Retaining Punjab would be crucial as it is one of the only three states where the Congress is in power on its own apart from Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
A zero score on March 10 would also deal a huge blow to Rahul Gandhi’s leadership with a section of party leaders waiting for March 10 to make their next moves.
A major loss in UP as predicted by exit polls would also undermine the electoral influence of AICC general secretary UP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who campaigned relentlessly in the state to rejuvenate a moribund party.
She obviously faced an uphill task and was a solitary Congress crusader in UP, where the party can hardly claim any organizational base.
Ahead of election results, Congress deputes Ajay Maken, Khera for poll strategising in Punjab
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