A group of Congress MLAs from Haryana on Monday met senior party leader KC Venugopal, who was apparently lobbying former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The meeting comes days after some MLAs demanded “strong leadership” for the party in the state, when they met another senior Congress leader in the capital.
The two meetings indicate a ruckus in the Haryana Congress, even as the party’s top leadership deals with factionalism in neighboring Punjab. On Monday, a meeting was held at Hooda’s residence in Delhi.
Hooda is the Leader of Opposition in the Haryana Legislative Assembly, while Kumari Selja is the state Congress president. Barring Hooda, 22 MLAs visited the AICC headquarters to meet Congress general secretary Venugopal in charge of the organisation. Party sources said that later some of the 22 MLAs held a meeting with him.
All the MLAs who met at Hooda’s Delhi residence are considered loyal to the former chief minister. Four days ago, 19 Congress MLAs from Haryana had met AICC general secretary and the party’s Haryana affairs in-charge Vivek Bansal in Delhi, demanding “strong leadership” for the party in the state and supporting an important role for Hooda. did.
The Congress has 31 MLAs in the state. Congress MLA Kuldeep Vats told reporters, “We discussed the organizational matters related to the state unit as the district unit presidents have not been appointed in the political situation in the state in the backdrop of the farmers’ agitation going on for many years, in the upcoming panchayat elections. All these issues were discussed.” on Monday.
Bibi Batra, who went to meet Venugopal after the meeting, while answering a question from journalists in Delhi, denied that there was any infighting in the state unit. Senior Haryana Congress leader Kiran Choudhary, who is a sitting MLA and former minister, met Venugopal separately.
However, Choudhary described their meeting as routine. “He is our general secretary and the organization in charge. He is a senior leader, I meet him from time to time. There was no specific agenda for my meeting today. Regularly, I keep meeting the senior leadership,” she said. . .
Sources said that during the two meetings, the MLAs said that the party did not have a district unit chief for the last eight years and stressed on the need to strengthen the state unit. They have sought an important role for Hooda in the state unit and greater say in organizational matters, some of them saying it was necessary in the present scenario as the farmers’ movement is going on and former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, who served Was giving 10 years sentence in teacher recruitment scam has been released from jail.
The legislators were of the opinion that only a “strong leader” can counter any advantage the INLD accrues due to Chautala’s release from jail. After his meeting with the MLAs on Thursday, Bansal had told reporters that since the MLAs had not met for a long time due to the Covid pandemic, the decision to take their feedback on the political situation in the state and suggestions about the party would be taken. was taken. Organizational structure and upcoming Panchayat elections.
However, a senior Haryana Congress leader who attended the meeting with Bansal said the legislators pointed out that there should be a “leadership change at the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) level” to strengthen the party. Responding to the MLAs’ meeting with Bansal, Selja had said on Friday, “The MLAs can meet their party in-charge. I do not see any indiscipline if the party MLAs go and meet the state unit in-charge of the party and say something. It is their right. Bansal sahib later clarified what the meeting was about.” After the MLAs’ meeting with Bansal on Thursday, Selja had also separately met the senior leadership of the party.
The developments in the Haryana Congress came amid infighting in the party’s Punjab unit, where senior leader Navjot Singh Sidhu is in a face-off with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
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