Bhupinder Singh Hooda camp wants full control of Cong in state
Chandigarh: Learning no lessons from the massive defeat in parliamentary election in Haryana where it lost all the ten seats, the Congress is seeing intense infighting just two months before the Assembly elections in the state.
The Bhupinder Singh Hooda camp of the state Congress, which is fighting an existential battle, is showing brinkmanship, as it wants all control of the party in the state. There is certain section amongst party leaders who want Mr Hooda to part ways with the Congress.
The other faction of the Congress which includes state Congress Ashok Tawar and Kumari Selja are asking for disciplinary action against Mr Hooda for saying “Congress has lost its way”.
Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is considered the strongest Congress leader in Haryana. He enjoys support of 13 Congress sitting MLAs out of total 17 MLAs the party has in the state. With INLD in tatters after the split and with its patriarch Om Parkash Chautala in jail, Bhupinder Singh Hooda undoubtedly remains the tallest opposition in Haryana.
Earlier, there were rumours that Mr Hooda could announce formation of a new political outfit in his rally at Rohtak. He criticised the Congress for its stand on Article 370. Keeping this in view it seems to be normal for Mr Hooda to demand complete control of state Congress in Haryana, especially after the drubbing it got in parliamentary elections. In these elections, the BJP won all the 10 Lok Sabha seats and got lead in 79 out of 90 Assembly segments in the state. Mr Hooda lost the Sonipat seat by 1.6 lakh votes and his son Deepender Hooda lost Rohtak by a narrow margin of 7503 votes. The Congress was ahead of the BJP in 10 Assembly segments. Most of these were in the Hooda stronghold Deswali region — the districts of Rohtak, Sonipat, Jhajjar.
When compared to the Hoodas, the other Congress leaders fared poorly in the parliamentary elections. State Congress president Ashok Tanwar and Kumari Selja lost their seats by over three lakh votes, Earlier this year, another rival Randeep Singh Surjewala stood third in a bypoll in Jind. All these leaders are considered rivals of Mr Hooda. This situation has offered him to flex his muscles and assert to the party senior leadership about the fact how indispensable he is to the Congress in the state.
After days of speculations that Mr Hooda might break away from the Congress, he was seen at Veer Bhumi, the samadhi sthal of Rajiv Gandhi and later Parliament House where he was seen in the company of senior leadership of the Congress as they paid tributes to the late Prime Minister.
It is learnt that Congress senior leadership has so far pacified him by suggesting an amicable solution to the factional fights in the Haryana unit. However, Mr Hooda would like to have complete control of the state unit of the party and nothing less, his associates reveal.