Buoyed by LS result,Cong set to advance Haryana polls

As it is,the Hooda government is presently riding at the crest of its popularity. The Congress won nine out of 10 Lok Sabha seats in the last election — with the only exception being Hisar which elected Haryana Janhit Congress leader Bhajan Lal by a slender margin. According to Congress leaders from the state,the party led on about two-thirds of the 90 Assembly segments in the state in the Lok Sabha election. Internal surveys commissioned by the party also indicated a landslide win for the ruling party,said sources.

Sources said the Hooda Cabinet would recommend the dissolution of the Assembly shortly after the by-election to the Rajya Sabha on August 10. Out of 13 vacancies for which by-elections will be held,one is in Haryana,which recently fell vacant after former Law Minister Hansraj Bhardwaj was appointed Karnataka Governor.

Meanwhile,the Congress on Saturday constituted two high-level committees to coordinate poll related work in Maharashtra and Haryana. They are headed by the respective state in-charges — Prithviraj Chavan for Haryana and A K Antony for Maharashtra. The Maharashtra committee includes AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh,Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman K Rahman Khan and AICC secretaries Mohan Prakash and Praveen Rashtrapal. The Haryana committee has AICC general secretary B K Hariprasad and Punjab PCC working president Mohinder Singh Kaypee as its members.

In a related development,the Congress leadership is also exploring the possibility of holding elections in Jharkhand along with Haryana and Maharashtra. Although the JMM and a section of the Congress were in favour of making another bid to form a government,the Congress high command was said to be averse to the idea. Sources said that while elections in Jharkhand this year was “more or less certain”,the party leadership was yet to take a final call on whether to go it alone or in alliance.