While incumbent chief ministers of Maharashtra and Haryana, Ashok Chavan and Bhupinder Singh Hooda, respectively, remained the favourites to get a second term, Congress president Sonia Gandhi was yet to make up her mind as she continued consultations with senior party leaders till late on Saturday night.

With the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in both states authorising the Congress president to take a decision regarding their leaders, Sonia received feedback from Central observers who had been sent to the two states — A K Antony, Digvijay Singh and K Rehman Khan for Maharashtra and Prithviraj Chavan, B K Hari Prasad and Mohsina Kidwai for Haryana.

The Central observers who had held consultations with party MLAs in Haryana on Friday were learnt to have impressed upon her the fact that Hooda had no alternative in terms of stature and appeal, even as they qualified it by referring to caste

equations not favouring Hooda and to intra-party rivalry under his leadership.

The observers were of the opinion that after the exit of Bhajan Lal from the party in 2007, non-Jat communities had left the Congress. Hooda, on the other hand, failed to mobilise the Jat community across the state and his influence in this community remained confined to a few places like Rohtak and Sonipat, said party sources. Jat community, said the observers, had shifted to the INLD in this election. They also cited complaints from many state leaders, including MLAs, about the CM’s approach vis-à-vis his detractors in ticket distribution as also in election management.

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