The intense infighting in Haryana unit of Congress reached a new low on Thursday when a scuffle broke out between the supporters of party State chief Ashok Tanwar and former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda resulting in head injuries to Tanwar.
The clash between the supporters of two leaders took place during Congress’ vice president Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Bhairon temple in New Delhi to end his month-long Kisan Yatra. The two groups have reportedly clashed over area domination at the venue.
Following the clash, Tanwar sustained head injuries and was admitted to Ram Manohar lohia hospital in New Delhi. Few party workers also received minor injuries during the scuffle.
Bhupinder Singh Hooda, his son Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda, incharge of Haryana party affairs Kamal Nath, Haryana ClP leader Kiran Chaudhry, Congress leader Asha Kumari, Kuldeep Bishnoi and other senior party leaders met Tanwar at the hospital later.
Even though directions from Central party leadership have been given to the State party unit to present a united face and end the factionalism to take on BJP-led Haryana Government, no lessons seem to have been learnt so far.
The scuffle, meanwhile, has further escalated the infighting between the Hooda and Tanwar camp as several supports of Tanwar protested at the Delhi office of All India Congress Committee and demanded action against Hooda and his supporters.
Tanwar supporters have also threatened to register an FIR against Hooda supporters if the party high command fails to take an action in the matter.
Talking to The Pioneer, Kuldeep Soni, Haryana Congress spokesperson alleged that Hooda supporters had deliberately beaten up Tanwar with sticks and strict action should be taken against them.
Soni, who is from Tanwar camp, said that all leaders of state Congress committee are with Tanwar and would sit on dharna if action is not
taken against Hooda and his supporters.
This is not the first time that the supporters of two Congress leaders have clashed. last year during Congress’ Kisan Mazdoor Samman rally in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, a minor scuffle had broken out between Hooda and Tanwar supporters. Apart from this, Hooda supporters had also booed Tanwar at various party events.
While Hooda supporters are seen wearing pink turbans, Tanwar supporters are seen in an attire of different colour at party’s rallies.
Tanwar and two-time Chief Minister Hooda had been engaged in a tug-of-war since 2014 Haryana assembly polls in which the party was reduced to a pathetic 15 seats, even losing the status of the main opposition party to the Indian National lok Dal (INlD) in the State Assembly.
Since then. the Hooda faction has been trying to dislodge Tanwar from his post. In the past, several state MlAs had also met Kamal Nath raising the issue of infighting in the state party unit and demanding removal of Tanwar.
While ClP leader Kiran and Capt Yadav are considered close to Tanwar, Kuldeep Sharma, Shadi lal Batra and Phool Chand Mullana and state several MlAs are known supporters of Hooda. Randeep Surjewala, Kumari Selja and Kuldeep Bishnoi, however, have not been seen aligning with any of the two factions within the state Congress.