A day after results of the assembly elections, Congress was busy assembling the pieces of government formation in Maharashtra and Ashok Chavan Congress leaders celebrates their victory in Maharashtra state assembly elections.
Haryana, reconfirming its frontrunners in the states and altering equations with erstwhile stronger ally, NCP.

As the final steps towards forming new governments in the three states are taken, Ashok Chavan in Maharashtra, Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Haryana and Dorjee Khandu in Arunachal Pradesh, each of whom led the Congress to victory, are most likely to retain power.

Former CM Vilasrao Deshmukh met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Friday morning and later ruled himself out of the race, pointing out that he was a minister at the Centre. It does appear that the Congress may not want to undertake a major rejig of Maharashtra equations by considering a central minister.

In Haryana too, Bhupinder Singh Hooda is all set to remain in his chair despite the Congress’s electoral setback, which saw it fall six short of a majority in the 90-member assembly. He has cobbled up a majority by wooing the seven independents who had won.

In Arunachal Pradesh, chief minister Dorjee Khandu has hardly any competition

The nomination papers of 432 candidates, mostly Independents, were rejected while those of 1433 were found in order after scrutiny of papers today for the October 13 Haryana Assembly elections.

Friday was the last day for filing nominations for the 90 seats and Tuesday is the last day for withdrawing from the contest.

Election to the assembly takes place Oct 13 and counting of votes will take place Oct 22.

The Bhupinder Singh Hooda government last month recommended dissolution of the assembly seven months ahead of schedule and sought a fresh poll.

The last date of withdrawal is September 29. The counting of votes would take place on October 22.

Congress announced its first list of 68 candidates for elections to the 90-member state assembly.
The party ignored the claim of former deputy chief minister and four-time legislator from Kalka, Chander Mohan. Twenty-two candidates are yet to be announced.

Chander Mohan had got embroiled in a controversy in December last year by changing his religion to Islam, his name to Chand Mohammed and marrying lawyer Anuradha Bali aka Fiza.

Though Chander Mohan recently reverted to being a Hindu, ‘divorced’ Fiza and sought Congress ticket, he was ignored from the two seats – Kalka and Panchkula – he had sought.

Prominent names in the list include Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda (Garhi-Sampla-Kiloi), Finance Minister Birender Singh (Uchana Kalan), Forest and Tourism Minister Kiran Chaudhary (Tosham) and state Congress president Phool Chand Mullana (Mullana-reserved).

Power Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala, whose earlier constituency of Narwana has been reserved this time due to de-limitation, will now contest from the neighbouring seat of Kaithal.

The Kaithal seat was earlier represented by his father and senior Congress leader Shamsher Singh Surjewala. The senior Surjewala has expressed his desire to shift to national politics.

Hooda’s close aide K.V. Singh has been fielded from Dabwali.

The Haryana Vidhan Sabha was dissolved on Friday by Governor Jagannath Pahadia on the recommendation of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

Earlier in the day, the State Cabinet headed by Mr. Hooda had unanimously recommended to the Governor dissolution of the Vidhan Sabha with immediate effect thereby paving the way for early elections in the State seven months ahead of schedule.

Polls are likely in October, with those in Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh.

The announcement came after a short Cabinet meeting, after which the CM rushed to Raj Bhavan to hand over the recommendation for early elections, which were earlier slated for March next year.
Governor Jagannath Pahadia late in the evening accepted the recommendation and the House speaker was informed. Hooda was asked to continue as the caretaker chief minister until the state elections were completed. In the 2005 assembly elections, Congress won 67 of the 90 seats .

The move is aimed at capitalising on the Congress’ gains in the state during the Lok Sabha polls where it won nine out 10 parliamentary constituencies. Mr Hooda’s government has been in poll-mode for the last few months and the government announced a slew of measures aimed at keeping its winning streak in place after Friday’s cabinet meeting.