Congress sees ‘colour war’ as healthy competition

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 17

The war of political one-upmanship in the Haryana Congress continued today with state party president Ashok Tanwar exhibiting his political strength in view of farmers’ rally on Sunday.

At loggerheads with former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Tanwar managed for his supporters an elaborate audience with Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel at latter’s house here today.

Later, Tanwar got Patel and Congress general secretaries Digvijaya Singh and Shakeel Ahmed (Haryana in charge) to address farmers at his North Avenue residence, where a marathon preparatory meeting for the April 19 rally was held.

The meeting became a ground for the Hooda-Tanwar clash over the ongoing controversy around colours which party workers are supposed to wear to the Sunday rally. Hooda has instructed his supporters to wear pink turbans, while the Tanwar camp has been rooting for the Gandhi cap with Tricolour. The justification is that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had once said, “The Tricolour is our religion.”

At Tanwar’s house today, both he and his supporter Balbir Pal Shah (former state unit chief) urged farmers to wear Tricolour hues to honour Rahul’s sentiment.

As the “colour controversy” raged, Congress top guns appeared content with what was happening. “As long as people come for a good cause, it does not matter what they wear,” party general secretary Shakeel Ahmed said.

Congress media unit head Randeep Surjewala had an even better take on the pink versus Gandhi cap controversy. “If the colour controversy helps promote healthy competition among Congress workers, there’s no harm,” he told The Tribune.

With the central leadership playing along, both Hooda and Tanwar supporters can expect to have a field day on Sunday when top party leaders will gather at Ram Lila grounds for the crucial rally. So far as today’s show of strength by Tanwar goes, it was attended by all leaders who attended a similar event hosted by Hooda a few days ago.

An important addition to Tanwar’s visitor list was Asha Kumari, Congress secretary in charge of Haryana, who did not attend the former CM’s meeting on rally preparations. An important omission from his list was Rajya Sabha MP Kumari Selja.