Days after he was unceremoniously axed as head of the State unit, former Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar on Wednesday alleged his party leadership was selling tickets at Rs 5 crore and giving tickets to undeserving candidates and to those who joined the Congress recently but were critical of it not long ago. Haryana will go to Assembly polls on October 21 and the results will be declared on October 24 along with Maharashtra.
Tanwar was joined by his close associates staged a protest and address the party workers from Haryana in front of Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s residence in national Capital. “I have worked hard for years, but the people who joined the party 15 days ago are being given tickets by the party,” Tanwar alleged.
The former Haryana Congress chief alleged the ticket for the Sohna Assembly seat in Gurugram was “sold for Rs 5 crore.” He said the leadership in the State has been destroyed. “We have remained dedicated to the party. Why do
you have to give tickets to those who recently joined the party, but were critical of the party earlier?”
Tanwar claimed that he had been approached by the BJP six times in the last three months, but he turned down the offer as he is “not hungry for power”. “I had personal issues with Randeep Singh Surjewala (AICC chief spokesman), but I set aside all those differences for the party’s sake,” he said.
With Haryana differences within the Haryana Congress leadership growing and soon after the former Harayana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda threatened to quit the party, Sonia Gandhi who had just taken charge as an interim president of the grand old party effected changes in the Haryana Congress.
Former Union Minister and a close aide of the party chief, Kumari Selja was appointed chief of the Haryana Congress.
Resnetment against Tanwar was going on for a long time and went at its peak before the Lok Sabha polls but remained at helms of affairs since he was close to the then Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.
Party workers on Wednesday marking Gandhi Jayanti also raised slogans against Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is the in-charge of the party’s Haryana affairs. In reply to a question, the agitating Congress workers took the name of senior party leaders — former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Azad — for allegedly giving tickets to wrong people.