Hooda men boo Haryana Cong chief

NEW DELHI: Bitter factional rivalry of the Haryana Congress unit was in full display at the party’s all important anti-land ordinance rally today with supporters of former state Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda booing state party chief Ashok Tanwar, much to the displeasure of central leaders.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi helps Haryana Congress leader Kiran Chaudhry after she stumbled at the party’s farmers’ rally in New Delhi on Sunday. Photo: Manas Ranjan Bhui

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 19

Bitter factional rivalry of the Haryana Congress unit was in full display at the party’s all important anti-land ordinance rally today with supporters of former state Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda booing state party chief Ashok Tanwar, much to the displeasure of central leaders.

Brewing since the Congress announced its plans to hold the rally, divisions in the state Congress hit a pinnacle today when pink-turbaned supporters of Hooda shouted down Tanwar the moment he appeared on stage to speak.

Asked why they did so, one of the members of the booing brigade said they were protesting Tanwar’s recent statements that a real Congressman would be the one who arrived at Ram Lila Grounds, the rally venue, donning a Gandhi cap and not a pink turban.

“This is not the way. This is an affront to our sentiments. We wear our pinks by choice. That does not make us less of Congressmen,” said Sangram Singh, a farmer from Palwal who wore a pink turban just as 70 per cent farmers in the stadium did in clear indications of the former CM winning the raging colour war.

Haryana’s entry to the Congress rally was in fact the strongest, admitted top leaders. Hooda supporters had thronged the venue at 6 am today and waited in line to enter the grounds which were opened by the police only three hours later at 9 am.

On a question about what the party thought of Tanwar’s booing at a national event, Shakeel Ahmad, Congress general secretary in charge of Haryana said, “It was a very unfortunate event. We appreciate the sentiments of people but they should control their emotions at gatherings meant to display unity of purpose. This must not be repeated.”

The pink turbaned crowds reportedly acted on their own and not at Hooda’s behest because they wanted to register their anger over the state chief’s recent moves to isolate people for wearing pink to the farmers’ rally venue. A senior Congress leader acknowledged this, saying, “Our enquiries with the ex-CM also confirmed this. But farmers should have controlled their aggression.”