Amid political upheaval in Punjab, former Haryana Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda has convened a meeting of Congress Legislature Party on Wednesday.
The meeting seemed to be a ‘conscious effort’ to ensure that Hooda does not lose his grip over the party state unit in Haryana after veteran leader Capt Amarinder was forced to quit as Punjab Chief Minister. Hooda had held the CLP meeting last month before the beginning of the monsoon session of Haryana Assembly on August 20. Not only this, the two-time Chief Minister had also hosted a lunch on August 25 here for over 200 party leaders, a move which was termed as a show of strength.
Apart from the AICC Haryana in charge Vivek Bansal, state party chief Kumari Selja and Kiran Chaudhary, current MLAs, former MLAs and MPs among other party leaders had attended the luncheon hosted by Hooda.
Another meeting with party MLAs within a time span of less than a month is seen as an effort by the former Chief Minister to keep his flock together and boost confidence among party leaders as well as workers ahead of crucial Ellenabad bypoll and elections to urban local bodies and panchayati raj institutions in the state.
Hooda is currently seen as the most influential Congress leader in the state.
While the MLAs have not been told about the agenda of the CLP meeting, a party MLA said that farmers’ issues will be discussed in the meeting. Congress is also likely to chalk out a strategy to attack the BJP-JJP Government over the issues of farmers, unemployment, inflation, law and order among others.
On the timing of the meeting, the party MLA claimed that the CLP meeting was already fixed a week ago and had nothing to do with developments in the party's Punjab unit and resignation of Capt Amarinder Singh.
Notably, Haryana Congress is currently struggling due to factionalism. The infighting in the party had intensified in July this year when the MLAs loyal to Hooda had begun their campaign to get the current state party chief Selja replaced with the former Chief Minister.
MLAs, who are Hooda loyalists had met party general secretary KC Venugopal and state party in-charge Vivek Bansal in New Delhi to demand that Hooda be given the command of the party in the state. They had also demanded that Hooda and all MLAs should be consulted before finalizing the list of appointments at district and block level in the state party unit.
The list of office bearers is yet to be announced by the central party leadership.
Congress, which is the main opposition party in Haryana, has a strength of 31 MLAs in the 90-member House.