Congress stalwarts, wards lead ticket race in Haryana

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service 
New Delhi, April 10

Haryana Congress stalwarts and their wards are leading the race for party nominations for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with the chorus growing for former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to contest from Sonepat.

Top AICC sources told The Tribune today that the party’s screening committee for parliamentary nominations has readied the panels of potential candidates from all 10 seats in the state.

Hooda’s is the only candidature from Sonepat Lok Sabha segment, where five sitting Congress MLAs have written to the AICC leadership to field the former CM. Hooda recently said in an interview to The Tribune that he was open to fighting the LS polls should the party ask him to.

Former MP Shruti Choudhry, the daughter of Congress Legislature Party Leader in Haryana Kiran Choudhry, has been named from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh.

In Sirsa, the party has proposed the nomination of state unit president Ashok Tanwar, who has represented this segment in the Lok Sabha earlier. Former minister and sitting Rajya Sabha MP Kumari Selja’s name has been proposed from Ambala.

In Kurukshetra, the panel of Congress nominees comprises former MP Naveen Jindal and Kailasho Saini.

Adampur MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi and his son Bhavya both feature on the panel of candidates from Hisar while former state Speaker Kuldeep Sharma and his son Chanakya Pandit have been named the nominees from Karnal. Both Kuldeep Bishnoi and Kuldeep Sharma want ticket for their sons, but the party wants that the two should themselves contest.

The panel of Congress candidates from Faridabad LS segment panel consists of MLAs Karan Dalal and Lalit Nagar and former MP Avtar Bhadana, who recently joined the Congress after quitting the BJP.

From the Gurgaon seat, the screening committee has proposed the names of former Haryana minister Ajay Singh Yadav and his son Rao Daan Singh and Rao Dharam Pal.

The panels will be discussed at the meeting of the Congress central election committee chaired by party president Rahul Gandhi tomorrow. The final decision on candidates will be announced after the CEC meet tomorrow.

It’s meanwhile learnt that there is resentment among Haryana Congress workers over complete dominance of party veterans and their families in LS ticket discussions.

“I will not get a Congress ticket in Haryana because my father is neither an MP nor an MLA. Being a worker is not enough here,” a Haryana Congress general secretary said.

Jindal ‘opts out’ of Kurukshetra

Even as the Congress high command is yet to accept his submission, former party MP from Kurukshetra Naveen Jindal has opted out of the electoral battle this time, it is reliably learnt. Sources revealed that Jindal has cited personal reasons, especially business and financial issues, for not contesting Lok Sabha election from Kurukshetra this time. Though some senior party leaders are trying to persuade Jindal to contest, the party is considering fielding two-time former 

MP Kailasho Saini from Kurukshetra in case Jindal remains adamant not to contest. Kailasho had defeated Congress heavyweights Om Parkash Jindal (Naveen’s father) in 1999 and Kuldeep Sharma in 1998 by big margins. 

— Nitin Jain