Chandigarh: If the Congress has begun preparing in earnest for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, the signs are certainly not visible in Haryana.
With the April-May parliamentary polls set to be followed by the Haryana assembly elections towards the end of this year, all political parties have begun sprucing up their act. But the state Congress seems to be in complete disarray, and is fraught with intense infighting.
The recent bypoll humiliation in Jind hasn’t helped the Congress cause either, as different factions have remained at war. The candidate who finished third in the bypoll, Randeep Surjewala, the party’s national spokesperson and Rahul Gandhi’s close aide, has also acknowledged that all is not well in the Haryana Congress.
In a statement issued after the results on 31 January, Surjewala said those within the party who worked against it can now “forget” about ever getting any power. Although he did not name anyone, his statement brought the focus back on the ongoing battle for supremacy among the top leaders.
Surjewala vs Hooda
Party insiders believe that Surjewala is eyeing the Haryana CM’s post if the Congress wrests power in the assembly elections, and winning Jind would have given a fillip to his claim.
This would have naturally diluted the claim of former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the party’s most popular leader in the state. Hooda is on the backfoot, engulfed in a series of FIRs lodged by the CBI which are at various stages of investigation and litigation.
Surjewala, an MLA from Kaithal, only needed an electoral victory like Jind to prove his credentials as a mass leader and nudge Hooda out of the race. So, when Hooda made his presence felt only on the last few days of the campaign in Jind, sources say it was more to avoid open confrontation than as a genuine effort towards helping Surjewala win.
However, Hooda told ThePrint: “If Surjewala believes that the reason he lost was because an insider thwarted his chances of a win, then he should tell who it is. And if it is true, then the party should take strict action against that person.”
Also read: How Hooda and Tanwar are fighting a running battle to head the Haryana Congress
Tanwar vs Hooda
What doesn’t help the Congress’ cause is the acrimony and barely-concealed clashes that have taken place between Hooda and state party chief Ashok Tanwar. The latter was made the chief in February 2014, ahead of the last Lok Sabha polls, with an aim to woo the Dalit population, which would’ve complemented the hold that Hooda has on the Jat vote bank.
Tanwar, also considered close to Gandhi, was elected MP from Sirsa in 2009, but lost in 2014. His three-year term as state president ended in early 2017, and even though Hooda has made it clear multiple times to the high command that he be allowed to run the party, his wishes have been ignored.
The result is Tanwar and Hooda have been running their separate tiny warring kingdoms within the state. Hooda has the backing of a dozen MLAs and has kept in touch with his vote bank through farmer rallies and kisan panchayats. Tanwar has been doing his own thing, mainly fasts and cycle runs across the state, to remain in the news.
Speaking to ThePrint about the Jind bypoll defeat, Tanwar said: “There are several reasons for it. We have a good idea why we lost and all these reasons will be told to the party high command. For the time being, the state unit has not started any internal inquiry to find out if any party men were also working towards defeating Surjewala. I will be talking to Surjewala to try and know why he pointed fingers at partymen.”
Also read: Farm loan waiver, elderly pension if Congress wins polls: Former Haryana CM Hooda
No one at the grassroots
Tanwar and Hooda’s feud has weakened the organisational structure of the party.
In 2015, Tanwar put up a team of vice-presidents and general secretaries and a 52-member executive committee to run the affairs of the Congress in Haryana.
“The executive committee has not met even once in all these years,” said an MLA who was a member of the committee.
Tanwar had also announced a team of 90 people in charge of assembly seats last month, but that list was rejected by the Hooda camp. “We were not consulted at all while putting the in-charges in place. We came to know about it through the newspapers,” said a Hooda-supporting MLA.
Apart from these two camps, the Congress’ leader in the assembly, Kiran Choudhry, and Rajya Sabha MP Kumari Selja are also independent power centres in Haryana.
Since there is no consensus among these leaders about the party’s organisation at the lower rungs, there are no district- or block-level presidents. These absent leaders are the ones supposed to create a cadre of workers to organise booth level meetings during elections, as well as to handle door-to-door campaigns.
But with the Lok Sabha polls expected to be announced as early as next month, the Congress is nowhere near ready.