Rahul stays all state Cong lists after midnight drama

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 17

Congress president Rahul Gandhi intervened late last night to stay all AICC lists from Haryana after the party’s central election authority curiously issued a new Pradesh delegate list, trashing the already published original list.

The new list, which Congress election authority Mullapally Ramachandran issued at 9 pm yesterday, was heavily skewed in favour of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and is learnt to have ignored genuine PCC delegates who had featured in the original list on the basis of their organisational work.

News spread last night that a new list had been issued, overlooking the old one and this had been done on the approval of AICC general secretary in charge of Haryana Kamal Nath.

The new list is said to have 60 per cent leaders owning loyalty to Hooda whereas the original list already approved by Ramachandran had balanced all factions.

Strong protests broke out last night after a new list came out and all old delegates were told they were no longer part of the delegate document. 

The Tribune has learnt that hearing all this, state party president Ashok Tanwar, CLP leader Kiran Choudhry and former minister and former MLA Ajay Yadav approached Rahul Gandhi with complaints of gross disregard of the Congress constitution which states that an AICC delegate list can only be formed after a PCC delegate list is finalised.

“The PCC delegate list had been issued. The AICC delegate list had been issued and suddenly you have a new PCC delegate list on the eve of the Congress plenary. This is unheard of. This is shocking,” a senior Congress leader said.

All lists from Haryana are now on hold with Rahul set to restore the original PCC list on the basis of which AICC members from the state were finalised.

It was only after Tanwar, Choudhry and Yadav went to the Indira Gandhi Stadium post-midnight yesterday to meet Ramachandran that the “forged new list of PCC delegates” was stayed and held up.

Ironically, while the plenary today stressed unity of cadres, acute factionalism played out in Haryana.