BJP workers celebrate the party’s victory in the Maharashtra assembly election in Pune on Thursday. Old warhorses wage new battle

ground can turn fortunes.

The Congress’s “old guard” was back in the game -- in particular, Ahmed Patel, a leader with whom the Haryana veteran shared a good equation, and Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Haryana in-charge of the party. Hooda was made campaign in-charge of the state in early September.

On Thursday, he delivered. At a time of deep crisis, when the Congress is stuck in a web of low resources-low morale-depleting social base-ideological confusion-electoral setbacks and then a repeat of the vicious cycle, Hooda brought smiles to the party by winning 31 seats for the Congress in the state, more than double its tally of 2014. He mounted a comeback just five months after Congress was wiped out in the Lok Sabha polls, when he personally lost his own seat.

A hung verdict in Haryana notwithstanding, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared set on Thursday to return to power in the state as well as in Maharashtra, where the party, while diminished in numbers compared to its previous term, was in a majority along with its ally Shiv Sena.

It will not be without a fight though, with former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda trying to rally anti-bjp forces in Haryana, and the Sena indicating it would drive a hard bargain by asking for a “50-50” formula in Maharashtra.

According to provisional results released on Thursday, the BJP fell six victories short of the 46 it required to form a government in Haryana, having ceded ground to the Congress (which doubled its 2014 tally to reach 31) and the Jannayak Janta Party (formed late last year after breaking away from the Indian National Lok Dal to reach a tally of 10). According to party functionaries, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar will meet the governor on Friday to stake claim and BJP strategists have opened up a two-pronged approach to win over new allies: