Cong keeps post-poll options open in Haryana

The Congress is adopting a wait-and-watch approach and has kept its post-poll options open in Haryana after the BJP failed to get a majority on its own in a hung verdict.

Sources said the Congress is seeking to woo all other non-BJP parties and its leaders have appealed to them to come together in a bid to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from retaining power in the state.

Congress's former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda arrived in the national capital late in the evening for talks with the party leadership.

He met some Congress leaders in Delhi and is set to meet party president Sonia Gandhi on Friday. Hooda will also hold discussions with All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in-charge of Haryana Ghulam Nabi Azad and senior party leader Ahmed Patel.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi called up Hooda to discuss the election verdict and possibilities of government formation.

The Congress is seeking to put together a grand alliance comprising the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and some Independent candidates in a bid to form government in Haryana. Congress leaders are in talks with some independents as well as the JJP.

However, sources said Dushyant Chautala's JJP, which won 10 seats in Haryana, was emerging as a kingmaker and was in touch with both the Congress and the BJP.

The Haryana polls threw up a hung verdict on Thursday, with the ruling BJP emerging as the single-largest party with 40 seats, but six short of the halfway mark of 46 in the 90-member house.

The Congress won 31 seats, the JJP 10, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Haryana Lokhit Party one each. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which contested 46 seats, was decimated.

The split verdict triggered hectic political activity. At least two independents boarded a plane to Delhi for a meeting with the BJP leadership, party sources said.

The BJP's final tally came as a disappointment for the saffron party that had won all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the parliamentary polls held in April-May and predicted that it would win over 75 seats in the Assembly.

The opposition Congress bagged 28.10 per cent votes, a sharp jump from 20.58 per cent in 2014, when it had won just 15 seats.

In the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had secured 28.42 per cent votes in Haryana but failed to open its account in a one-sided contest.