New Delhi: The Congress appointed Udai Bhan, a Dalit leader and a loyalist of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, as the chief of its Haryana unit Wednesday, replacing Kumari Selja.
With assembly elections scheduled for 2024, the move comes at a time when the state unit is beset with factional feuds, and seems to be a signal that the party is entrusting the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee to the Hooda camp.
A sitting Congress Member of the Legislative Assembly in Haryana told ThePrint on the condition of anonymity that the Congress’s central leadership had offered Hooda the position, but that the legislators in the Haryana assembly didn’t want him to quit as leader of the Congress Legislative Party (CLP).
“The Delhi leadership had offered him the post of president but he would have had to quit as CLP leader because he couldn’t hold two positions. He consulted us, and we said that we needed a strong leader in the assembly in the runup to the state elections,” the MLA said.
The 66-year-old Bhan, who has kept a relatively low profile, is the son of former Haryana MLA and well-known state leader Gaya Lal, whose antics inspired the infamous political phrase ‘Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram’ to describe party-hopping politicians.
He is also known to be a supporter of Bhupinder Singh Hooda, which is why Wednesday’s decision is being viewed as a hint by the Gandhis that the Congress’ future in Haryana rests on the legacy of the Hooda clan.
Bhan’s appointment came at a juncture when the factional war between Hooda and Selja, who became HPCC chief just before Haryana’s assembly elections in 2019, had resurfaced.
A Dalit leader and a former minister in the Manmohan Singh government, Selja had offered to quit the position earlier this month.
Notably, Hooda thanked the interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a tweet after the announcement. “This decision will strengthen the organisation of the party in Haryana,” he said in Hindi.
Four working presidents — Shruti Choudhry, Ram Kishan Gujjar, Jitender Bhardwaj, and Suresh Gupta — were also appointed to the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC), reportedly as a measure to pacify various factions.
The reshuffle also comes at a time when most state units of the Congress are either being reorganised or will undergo a reorganisation.
Since its dismal performance in the February-March assembly elections, Congress has appointed new heads for the state units of Punjab, Goa, Manipur, and Uttarakhand. Only Tuesday, Congress appointed Pratibha Singh, Member of Parliament from Mandi and the widow of the late party stalwart Virbhadra Singh, as its Himachal Pradesh chief, once again choosing legacy over a “younger face”.
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Who Is Udai Bhan?
Although Bhan has been active in Haryana politics since the 1980s, he’s still best known for being the son of Gaya Lal, a former Haryana MLA notorious for his party defections.
‘Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram’, a phrase that gained popularity in the 1960s, was coined after Lal, then an Independent MLA from Hassanpur (secured) assembly seat in Haryana, switched three different parties in a single day in 1967.
Bhan was the chairman of the Krishak Bharati Cooperative (KRIBHCO) between 1989 and 1993 and joined the Congress in 1997. He fought and won his first assembly election from Hassanpur in 1987 and won the seat twice thereafter — in 2000 as an Independent candidate and later in 2005 as a Congress candidate.
Bhan won the Hodal (reserved) seat as a Congress candidate in 2014 but lost in the last assembly election to the BJP’s Jagdish Nayyar.
Bhan is the fourth Dalit chief of the Haryana Congress in 17 years after Phool Chand Mullana, Ashok Tanwar, and Kumari Selja. The state has a significant Dalit population — 21 per cent according to the 2011 Census — and the party leadership has come to believe over the years that having a Jat leader like Hooda helming the party would alienate Dalit voters, especially since the caste violence that shook Haryana in 2012.
Perhaps that’s what makes Bhan a good choice, party sources say.
“The fact that he is a Dalit who has the approval of Hooda made him a good choice if Hooda was not taking on the mantle himself,” an AICC secretary who has worked in Haryana said. “The fact that he’s relatively low-profile will also cause less trouble in the party ranks.”
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Smoothing ruffled feathers
Haryana’s Congress unit has been riddled with factionalism for years now. Hooda, an old war-horse and the party’s most popular face in the state, has been at loggerheads with Ashok Tanwar — a former Haryana Congress chief now with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) after a brief stint with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) — and Kumari Selja, who had been the head of the Haryana unit since 2019.
She is reported to have met Congress president Sonia Gandhi earlier this month to resign amid speculation that either Hooda senior or his son, Member of Parliament Deepender Hooda, would be given the top job.
“The Congress president has accepted the resignation of Kumari Selja from the post of the president, Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee, with immediate effect,” Congress organisation secretary K.C. Venugopal said in a statement Wednesday.
Although its choice of Haryana Congress chief clearly seems to have favoured Hooda, the party has tried to strike a balance with the other appointments it made. Bhardwaj and Suresh Gupta are Hooda loyalists, Gujjar is a close aide of Selja, and Shruti Choudhry is the granddaughter of former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal.
The Congress high command has held meetings with several Haryana leaders over the last few weeks.
In March, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met Bhupinder and Deepender Hooda, Kumari Selja, AICC Haryana in-charge Vivek Bansal, and senior leaders Randeep Surjewala, Kiran Choudhry, and Kuldeep Bishnoi.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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