Amid Crisis, Congress Urges Haryana Governor For President's Rule, Early Polls

The political crisis in Haryana deepened Thursday after a delegation led by ex-Chief Minister and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda knocked on the door of Governor Bandaru Dattatreya and urged him to dismiss the BJP-led government as it is in the minority.

Mr Hooda also urged Mr Dattatreya to impose President's Rule and call for early an election; Haryana is scheduled to vote for a new government later this year. 

The Congress' delegation and Mr Dattatreya met for less than 25 minutes, after which Mr Hooda underlined his belief that the BJP-led government lacked the numbers.

The Haryana Assembly has 90 seats and the majority mark is set at 46. 

The current strength, however, is 87. 

The Congress' Kiran Choudhury is set to be disqualified after jumping to the BJP, while two members of ex-Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala's JJP - a BJP ally till March, when they split over sharing the state's 10 Lok Sabha seats - have already been dumped.

This means the new majority mark is 44.

The memorandum Mr Hooda submitted claims the BJP has only 41 MLAs; 43 with the support of two independent lawmakers, including the Sirsa representative Gopal Kanda.

This, the Congress has argued, means Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini - handed the post after his predecessor, ML Khattar, stepped down to contest the Lok Sabha election - cannot continue. Sans horse-trading, or the poaching of rival MLAs, the BJP does not have a majority, the opposition party told the Governor. The Congress has called on him to give the people of Haryana an early opportunity to elect a new government.

NDTV has seen a copy of the memorandum submitted to Mr Dattatreya.

Briefing the media after the meeting, Mr Hooda said the Congress will now wait on the Governor's decision. 

The Haryana political crisis was red-flagged during the recent Lok Sabha election, when three independent MLAs withdrew support to the BJP and offered it to the Congress.

After this Mr Chautala, whose party had 10 MLAs, also wrote to the Governor, as did his relative and INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala. Both called for a floor test for the BJP.