New Delhi: About three-fourths of Haryana Congress legislators landed in Delhi Monday to demand a change of guard in the state unit, at a time interim party president Sonia Gandhi is looking to resolve the crisis in the Punjab unit. She has called Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh for a meeting with her Tuesday.
As many as 22 of the 31 Congress MLAs in Haryana reached Delhi Monday and met former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda before a group of them arrived at the party headquarters to meet All India Congress Committee general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal to convey their demand for an overhaul in the state unit.
The five legislators — Kuldeep Vats, Varun Chowdhury, B.L. Saini, Raghubir Kadyan and B.B. Batra — who met Venugopal wanted state Congress chief Kumari Selja to be replaced, party sources said.
According to them, the organisation is in a shambles in the state, with no district unit chiefs for the last eight years. They wanted the Congress high command to hand over the reins of the Haryana unit to Hooda, the only party leader with mass base in the state.
Congress leaders attributed the crises in Punjab and Haryana to Rahul Gandhi’s “untiring” efforts to undermine the party’s most popular faces in the two states — Amarinder Singh and Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The Congress high command has backed Singh’s detractors, led by cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, in Punjab and seen to be seeking to sideline Hooda in Haryana.
Rahul Gandhi first appointed former Youth Congress president Ashok Tanwar as Haryana Congress president in February 2014 in what was seen as his attempt to prop up an “alternative” to Hooda. Tanwar didn’t come up to his expectations as he presided over the decimation of the Congress in 2014 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections as also in 2019 Lok Sabha polls in the state.
Just before the 2019 Haryana assembly election, the Congress chose to hand over the party’s reins to Kumari Selja, in what party leaders believed was the high command’s fresh attempt to “neutralise” Hooda.
The former CM, who had kept the heat on the ruling BJP all through the five years, organising a series of farmers’ agitations without Tanwar-led PCC’s support, could have his say in deciding candidates on barely half of the 90 assembly seats. Hooda, however, came up trumps in the election, with the winners’ list comprising about 90 per cent of his nominees.
In Haryana municipal corporation polls last December, the Congress won the seats where Hooda campaigned but lost where Selja and Rahul Gandhi’s close aide, Randeep Singh Surjewala, led the campaign.
Although the Gandhis’ nominees in Haryana have failed to prove their electoral utility in the last seven years, the party’s first family has consistently refused to let Hooda lead the party in Haryana.
It is in this backdrop that Congress MLAs have come to Delhi to try to convince the party high command to give primacy to the party’s most popular leader, Hooda, in Haryana.
Also read: Punjab Congress leaders explore exit options as Gandhis bat for Navjot Sidhu
Haryana MLAs demand bigger role for Hooda
At the meeting with Venugopal Monday, party sources told ThePrint, Haryana legislators raised the issue of Hooda being sidelined in deciding the Congress zila and block presidents and said the senior Congress leader must have a bigger role to play in the state.
A senior party leader said Venugopal reassured the MLAs that no decision would be taken without Hooda’s inputs or recommendations.
“Bhupinder Hooda can get a crowd of 1 lakh people even if a rally is called the night before, whereas the other camp struggles to even get 10,000 people at their rally even if they announce it a month in advance,” a source quoted a Haryana Congress leader as having said at the meeting.
When the leaders talked about changing the PCC chief, Venugopal explained that these suggestions would be considered and a decision on this would be taken later, a Haryana Congress leader told ThePrint.
Also discussed at the meeting was a larger role for Congress MLAs in the state as the leaders alleged that they were being ignored by Selja.
The MLAs raised the problems being faced by the party ahead of the panchayat polls to be held in August. The leaders said the fact that the Congress has had no district unit chiefs for the last eight years was coming in the way of the organisational framework at the grass-root level.
“We mainly discussed how to strengthen the Congress even further in the state,” said a leader who was present at the meeting.
The 2019 assembly polls in the state delivered a fractured verdict. While the ruling BJP won 40 seats, the Congress secured victory in 31, performing much better than what the exit polls had predicted. The credit for the performance went to Hooda who had led the campaign, with Rahul Gandhi only making what was seen as “guest appearances”.
Hooda is credited with the strong presence of the party in Haryana, with experts saying the Congress managed its seat share due to his popularity. With the farmers’ agitation taking place in many parts of the state, Haryana leaders are of the view that Hooda should have a bigger role in the party’s organisational structure to challenge the BJP government.
Also read: Navjot Sidhu hit a sixer against the Captain of Punjab Congress. Now he has a seat with Gandhis