The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in Haryana on Friday authorised party president Sonia Gandhi to pick its leader.
The first meeting of the CLP, chaired by Haryana Congress President and MP, Kumari Selja, unanimously passed a resolution and decided to elect the Leader of the Legislature Party and left it to the Congress President. Sources indicated that former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda will be appointed and become the Leader of Opposition in the state.
The meeting was attended by AICC General Secretary in-charge of the state, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Madhusudan Mistry, as Observer. All party MLAs were present in the meeting. Mistry personally interacted with all the MLAs separately to know their views.
Sources said that at a meeting of the CLP that the MLAs proposed two names -- former chief minister Hooda and former CLP leader Kiran Choudhary for the post, triggering a tug of war between the two groups. While 25 MLAs backed Hooda, six were in favour of Choudhary, they said.
Ahead of the Assembly election in Haryana, the Congress high command had replaced Ashok Tanwar with Selja as the state party chief and Choudhary as CLP leader with Hooda. Tanwar later quit the party. In the 90-member Assembly Congress has 31 members and performed well.
Addressing the meeting, Azad said Congress fought the assembly elections strongly and the people have also responded by giving the Party a bigger share in seats.
Addressing the meeting, Selja said Congress will play the role of strong opposition, adding that the anti-people decisions of the Government would be opposed strongly both inside and outside the House and on Streets.
She congratulated the newly elected MLAs and asked them to raise the issues of the public vigorously.
She also urged candidates who were defeated in assembly elections not to lose their heart and work strongly in their constituencies.
Hooda said the results of the assembly elections suggested that the public has become disenchanted with BJP and the future belongs to the Congress. "All Congress leaders and activists will have to raise their voices against the anti-people decisions of the government from now on and take care of the people's suffering," he said.