In a big blow to the Congress ahead of the Assembly polls in Haryana, senior party leader and Power Minister Captain Ajay Singh Yadav on Tuesday resigned from the Council of Ministers, alleging that there was discrimination by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Yadav, who has been critical of the style of functioning of Hooda, said, “Bureaucracy is dominating the State Government and nobody listens to Ministers. All powers lie only with the Chief Minister.”
The Rewari MlA said, “Despite being a Cabinet Minister, I couldn’t get the demand of a Medical College in my constituency fulfilled. It remained merely on papers and never materialised. I felt ashamed in front of people of my constituency.”
He, however, made it clear that he will not leave the party and remain a loyalist Congressman, professing faith in the leadership of party president Sonia Gandhi.
Yadav remained MlA for five consecutive terms in Haryana and was one of the seniormost party leaders of the State. Due to his seniority, he was given a Cabinet berth in both the tenures of Hooda as Chief Minister. He had worked as Minister of Power, Forests and Environment and was formerly Minister of Irrigation, Revenue and Elections.
The Minister’s resignation has considerably weakened the position of Hooda as several Congress leaders have left the party in recent months alleging either bias in development or dictatorial approach of Hooda in governance.
Yadav said the leadership had failed to learn lessons from the lok Sabha polls debacle. The Congress had lost nine of the ten seats in the polls.
Asked about Hooda’s response to his resignation, Yadav said the Chief Minister asked him to reconsider, but he declined. “I am waiting for the Congress High Command to take a decision,” Yadav said.
Asked if he had raised the issues at various cabinet meetings, Yadav said the cabinet meetings were restricted to the agendas being discussed.
“I had detailed the reasons for the party’s defeat before the Antony Panel,” he said, adding he would soon meet the party leadership. I want respect. If that is not given what else can I do. I had to make the sacrifice of resigning under compulsion when the bias in matter of development, recruitment, induction of members of various commissions and other statutory bodies, domination of the bureaucracy and neglect of party cadres, including MlAs continued and the party failed to learn any lessons from the lok Sabha debacle,” he said.
Yadav said it was essential for him to resign to give a message so that the party does not face the same situation in forthcoming assembly elections which it faced in the recent lok Sabha elections. He charged that development and other activities in the state had been confined to a couple of districts and not the entire state.
The veteran politician from South Haryana, also opposed the induction of two members to the State Information Commission and three to the Right to Service Commission, saying only bureaucrats have been inducted as members. “Didn’t they (government) see any politician or other personsIJ If the posts had been given to party cadres it would have been better,” he said.