Ahead of polls, the list of candidates released by the Congress party for Lok Sabha elections in Haryana has created a sense of discontent among the disgruntled aspirants in the State. Some of the aspirants for tickets, are lying low and are yet to join the campaign.
Senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, however, downplayed the resentment and said that no party leaders are upset and the final decision to allot tickets was made by the party's high command.
In Haryana, Congress is fighting the polls in alliance with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), with the former contesting from nine of 10 seats. AAP has named former Rajya Sabha member and state party chief Sushil Gupta from Kurukshetra.
Of the nine candidates fielded by the Congress, Hooda’s son and Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Singh Hooda is contesting from Rohtak Parliamentary Constituency, while former Union Minister and Congress General Secretary Kumari Selja from the Sirsa reserved seat; senior Congress leader and sitting MLA Rao Dan Singh from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh; youth leader Divyanshu Budhiraja from Karnal; Hooda loyalist and veteran leader Jai Prakash from Hisar; Sitting MLA Varun Choudhary from Ambala reserved seat; Hooda associate Satpal Brahmachari from Sonepat; while former State Minister Mahendra Pratap from Faridabad and Film Actor and senior party leader Raj Babbar from Gurugram.
Eight of the nine Congress candidates who have got tickets in Haryana for the May 25 polls are loyalists of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
After the Congress party announced the candidature of Raj Babbar from the Gurugram, Congress leader Ajay Singh Yadav, a contender for the seat, hit out at the Haryana unit of the party over a "deep-rooted" conspiracy "to crush senior leaders". Yadav took to X to express his unhappiness. "I will abide by the decision of the National leadership. But there is a deep-rooted conspiracy of a few congress Haryana state leaders to crush the senior Congress leaders," Yadav, who is the party's chairman of the OBC department, said without taking any names. "I am and will always work for the Congress Party," Yadav added.
While Kiran Choudhary, a sitting MLA of the Congress, was eyeing a ticket for her daughter Shruti Choudhary from the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat, Birender Singh's son Brijendra Singh was a ticket hopeful from the Hisar seat but both of them were denied tickets.
Party sources said that allegations of cross-voting during Raj Sabha Election against Kiran Choudhary, coupled with Hooda’s lobbying for his close associate Rao Dan Singh, likely influenced the party’s decision. Before the ticket announcement, some farmers had voiced their opposition to Birendra Singh’s son Brijendra, citing his absence during the 16-month-long farmers’ protest in Uchana.
Days after Congress announced Mahendergarh MLA Rao Dan Singh as its candidate from Bhiwani-Mahendergarh parliamentary seat, another ticket aspirant Shruti Choudhry, along with her mother and Tosham MLA Kiran Choudhry, recently met party workers in Bhiwani and claimed that she (Shruti) had emerged as the “most popular” during a party survey. Kiran Choudhry said, “Rao Dan Singh did tremendous work in the last poll. I will call my workers’ meeting in a week and assign them their duties.”
In response to his son’s ticket denial, Chaudhary Birendra Singh expressed disappointment, emphasizing Brijendra Singh’s eagerness to contest the elections. Birender Singh, a former Union minister, and Brijendra Singh, the outgoing Lok Sabha MP from Hisar, had left the BJP recently and joined the Congress.
Senior Congress leader and five-time MLA Karan Singh Dalal, who was denied ticket from Faridabad, has also sounded the bugle of rebellion asking the party to field him in place of the candidate announced by the party. Dalal also gave the party time till May 5 to take the decision. May 6 is the last date for filing of nominations for the May 25 election.
Upset over the denial of ticket when the party announced eight candidates, including for Faridabad, Dalal, convened a Sarv-Jatiya Mahapanchayat at Palwal, where he discussed his future course of strategy.
“The Mahapanchayat has decided that the party high command should change their decision by May 5 and field me as the party candidate in Faridabad or I should contest from some other political party. However, I have decided that if the party fields me as a candidate then I will contest. I will not contest as an Independent,” Dalal said after the Mahapanchayat.
He said the nomination process has begun in Haryana. “The process shall go on till May 6. The party high command has enough time to change their decision,” added Dadal, whose son is married to the daughter of Hooda’s brother.
In the list of nine announced by the Congress, as many as eight are loyalists and supporters of Hooda. They include former minister Mahendra Pratap who has been fielded from Faridabad. Dalal claimed that Mahendra Pratap was never in the list of contenders from Faridabad, but “a few people in the BJP managed to get him the Congress ticket to get their candidate a comfortable victory”.
Sources in the Congress Party said that several party functionaries wielding considerable influence among respective communities were unhappy with the way tickets had been distributed in the State. Moreover, with the fear of disgruntled aspirants playing spoilsport against the official candidates looming large, the party’s central leadership has intensified their efforts to suppress the rebellion within the party ranks.
