People voted for change in Maharashtra, Haryana: Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi, Oct 19: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said people have voted for "change" in Haryana and Maharashtra as Congress lost power in both with the BJP making deep inroads in the two states.

"We accept the verdict of the people. People have voted for change, after 15 years of our government in Maharashtra and 10 years in Haryana," Gandhi said as the results came in today of the Assembly polls.

However, unfazed by the rout, Gandhi said that Congress will work hard to regain the confidence of the people even as he congratulated the BJP for its victory.

"I congratulate the BJP on their success. The Congress party will work hard on the ground to once again earn the confidence of the people," Gandhi said in a statement.

AICC general secretary in-charge for Haryana, Shakeel Ahmed, meanwhile said that the party will sit and analyse the causes behind its "below-expected performance". He said that it was the people's verdict which was final in a democracy.

"Haryana has a tradition of change, of changing the government in every election. The only exception since its formation in 1966 was in the last polls, when Congress Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda retained power in 2009," he said.

Taking the responsibility for Congress's defeat in Maharashtra, former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said that although the party's performance was "disappointing", it has recovered some of the ground which it had lost in the Lok Sabha polls.

PTI