Ahead of Cong bus yatra, Yadav, Bishnoi skip meet : The Tribune India

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Ahead of Cong bus yatra, Yadav, Bishnoi skip meet

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the statewide bus tour planned by the Haryana Congress Coordination Committee members plan from March 26 to 31, two senior members of the state poll coordination committee skipped a workers’ meeting organised in the capital in a show of strength.

Ahead of Cong bus yatra, Yadav, Bishnoi skip meet

State Congress chief Ashok Tanwar addresses a party meeting in New Delhi on Saturday. Mukesh Aggarwal



Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 23

Ahead of the statewide bus tour planned by the Haryana Congress Coordination Committee members plan from March 26 to 31, two senior members of the state poll coordination committee skipped a workers’ meeting organised in the capital in a show of strength.

Former Haryana minister and senior party leader Capt Ajay Singh Yadav and sitting Adampur MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi did not attend the workers’ gathering held on the compounds of the Congress party headquarters in the capital.

Bishnoi had earlier bunked the first meeting of the Haryana Congress Coordination Committee called by AICC general secretary in charge of Haryana Ghulam Nabi Azad and chaired by former state Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

Yadav was, however, present at the first coordination panel meeting and also last evening at a meeting held to discuss the bus yatra.

Today’s meeting was massive. The AICC lawns were jam-packed with senior Haryana Congress leaders and workers.

Hooda led other state leaders of the coordination panel in sounding the poll bugle in Haryana, where the Congress is facing an aggressive BJP and has only one sitting MP — his son Deepender Hooda — in Rohtak.

While the energy at the workers’ meeting was high and the party looked raring to go, several Haryana Congress leaders, including some sitting and some former MLAs, expressed reservations about the utility of the bus travel without declaring official Lok Sabha candidates from the state.

At a preparatory meeting for the yatra held here on Friday, many leaders are learnt to have told Azad that it would have been better to undertake the tour after announcing candidates, especially when the rival BJP is actively engaged in poll preparations and nominee selections.

The bus travel is Azad’s personal idea, which he experimented with when he was the AICC in charge of Andhra and Karnataka in the late 1990s and early 2000.

A senior Haryana Congress lawmaker said, “The coordination committee members will travel across the state in a bus, but what will they achieve when we don’t even have any official candidate? Who will their show of unity benefit? This could become chaotic.”

Many other senior Haryana Congress leaders privately told The Tribune that a travel after announcing candidates could have boosted the prospects of contestants from a given area. Some leaders also thought the tour was a bit late in the day.

But since it is Azad’s idea which the coordination panel has discussed and approved, the tour schedule was finalised today from March 26 to 31.

The tour will start from Gurugram instead of Faridabad as planned earlier. It will end in Faridabad instead of Jhajjar, the previously agreed upon concluding location.

Azad’s idea behind the tour is to get all erstwhile warring factions of the Haryana Congress to plan together and give a semblance of unity to the state.

Today’s workers’ meeting saw the participation of party supporters owing allegiance to all state Congress camps.

Screening begins, Kuldeep Sharma wants Karnal seat for son

The highlight of the first meeting of the Haryana Lok Sabha screening committee was the offer of the Karnal seat to former state speaker Kuldeep Sharma, who is said to have asked for this segment for his son Chanakya Pandit. The screening panel chaired by AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal called the coordination panel members for discussions on nominees today. Kuldeep, who met the panel, is learnt to have sought the Karnal seat for his son. Kuldeep’s father Chiranji Lal Sharma was Karnal MP four times and defeated BJP leader Sushma Swaraj thrice from this seat. Congress sources said barring three seats — Faridabad, Karnal and Sonepat — front-runners from the seats are clear. In Faridabad, the choice is between senior MLA Karan Dalal and former MP Avtar Bhadana. In Sonepat, the party is likely to go by Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s choice. In Karnal, Chanakya Pandit has thrown his hat in the ring. The front-runners from other seats are Deepender Hooda from Rohtak, Shruti Choudhry from Bhiwani, Ashok Tanwar from Sirsa, Kuldeep Bishnoi from Hisar, Selja from Ambala, Naveen Jindal from Kurukshetra and Capt Ajay Singh Yadav from Gurugram.

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