Congress party on Thursday dubbed Haryana and Maharashtra assembly election results as "a moral defeat for the BJP" by saying that the Central leadership of the ruling party was clueless about the ground reality in the two states.
"We accept the people's mandate humbly and respectfully. We also want to say that it is a moral defeat for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and their entire leadership were cut off from the ground reality," Congress leader Sharma said at a press conference here.
"If we compare it to the Lok Sabha elections held recently, then in Maharashtra, BJP-Shiv Sena had a lead on 224 seats and were reduced to just 154 seats while they had claimed they would get close to 240. The difference happened in the past four months," added Sharma.
Rebutting BJP president Amit Shah's claim about Haryana, Sharma said: "In Haryana too they had a lead on 79 seats during the Lok Sabha election. They have lost the majority today. We did not agree with Amit Shahji's statement that the BJP has won there. Khattar has not got the majority. That is why our leader (Bhupinder Singh) Hooda has called upon all non-BJP parties to hold talks about forming the government."
While the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance is all set to retain Maharashtra, where it is going to win close to 160 seats, as per the trends of the Election Commission. The number is significantly less than the 185, 122 and 63 seats respectively, the two parties had managed to clinch in 2014 when they had fought the elections separately.
In Haryana too, the BJP has won 31 seats and is leading on 9 seats, which is lesser than the 47 seats it had managed to win in 2014.
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Sharma termed the election results as the start of a movement to rise against the atrocities being heaped on the youths and farmers and said the people had chosen to maintain political balance in the country.
"It is not the day when the BJP can celebrate. They were lost in arrogance. The people of Haryana and Maharashtra have maturely chosen to maintain political balance. We think of it as the start of a movement to rise up against the atrocities being heaped on the youths, farmers among others," said Sharma.