Cong fields top guns in Haryana: Selja, Yadav, Tanwar, Deepender in fray

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 13

The Congress on Saturday fielded its top guns in Haryana naming former Social Justice Minister Kumari Selja as a Lok Sabha candidate from Ambala segment.

The party also declared its state president Ashok Tanwar a nominee from Sirsa parliamentary constituency while re-nominating sitting Rohtak MP Deepender Singh Hooda from his current seat.

Shruti Choudhry, daughter of Congress Legislature Party Leader in Haryana Kiran Choudhry, has been fielded as a candidate from Bhiwani Mahendragarh which she represented in Lok Sabha earlier.

Sitting Congress MLA from Haryana Lalit Nagar beat tough competition for the party nomination from Faridabad segment where senior lawmaker Karan Dalal and former MP Avtar Aingh Bhadana were contenders. Bhadana recently quit the BJP to join Congress and was widely speculated to bag the Faridabad ticket.

Karan Dalal too was a formidable aspirant from the seat but Nagar was eventually chosen.

In the Gurugram segment the Congress has fielded senior leader and former state minister Captain Ajay Singh Yadav as its candidate.

Selja’s nomination is being read as significant in Congress circles considering she is a sitting Rajya Sabha MP from Haryana.

Tanwar was a natural choice from the Sirsa seat, which he won in the 2009 parliamentary polls.

Deepender Singh Hooda’s candidature was also a given considering he was the sole Congress winner in the ten Lok Sabha seats in Haryana in 2014 and the Hooda family has represented Rohtak in Lok Sabha for most part of the segment’s history.

Lalit Nagar’s candidature from Faridabad is equally interesting. In Haryana Congress circles Nagar is known for his closeness to Robert Vadra, the husband of AICC General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Shruti Choudhry’s name was expected from Bhiwani so was Capt Ajay Yadav’s from Gurugram.

The Congress Central election committee had cleared these names in its meeting held three days ago.

Six Haryana candidates were named among 18 the party released this evening.

The Congress has now declared 404 candidates for Lok Sabha elections.