Cong leaders eye gen secy’s post

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 22

Haryana Congress leaders have taken their battle for one-upmanship to the public by holding rallies, which are projected as a show of strength, amid talks of change in state’s leadership.

Post-Karnataka, the leaders are hopeful of getting a new party general secretary in charge of Haryana after previous general secretary Kamal Nath was appointed Madhya Pradesh Congress president. They are optimistic that long-drawn deliberations of effecting changes in the state unit in the year preceding the Parliament and Assembly elections will conclude.

Sources say senior leaders of the party have been asked to suggest leadership options keeping in mind the caste balance. The Jat and non-Jat combination will form the basis of any change or expansion of the unit, while sources say the party is keen to accommodate leaders of different castes to send out a message of inclusiveness.

At present, the team of Ashok Tanwar (state unit chief) and Kiran Choudhry (Congress Legislature Party leader) balances out the caste equation. Tanwar is a Dalit, while Choudhry is a Jat.

In view of the elections next year, sources say the party can create positions for two working presidents to accommodate senior leaders of different castes, while a campaign committee chief is likely to be appointed on the pattern of Madhya Pradesh.

Within the unit, there is a growing clamour by former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s faction for changing the leadership and anointing him as state president on the lines of Capt Amarinder Singh, who was made the president of the Punjab Congress ahead of Assembly elections.

Tanwar and Choudhry have no reason to count themselves out, while Rajya Sabha member Kumari Selja has, of late, increased her visibility in the state. She is being seen as a contender for one of the top posts.

Selja and Hooda, after a cold war during the Congress rule, seemed to have re-established ties and are learnt to be back together as a team. Among the Jats, Hooda has the support of most of the MLAs

Congress media incharge Randeep Singh Surjewala, too, is holding weekly programmes across the state to prove his strength, while former Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Sharma, a Hooda loyalist, is pitching to be the party’s Brahmin face.

Sources say the party leadership is not only keen on a Jat-Dalit-Brahmin representation, but also want OBC represented.