Hooda-led poll panel & a bus ride

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 18

In a curious turn of events in the Haryana Congress today, the party unveiled the same election coordination committee list it had issued and withdrawn three days earlier. The committee featured former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as chairman and state unit chief Ashok Tanwar, Congress Legislature Party Leader Kiran Choudhry, Rajya Sabha MP Kumari Selja, former Haryana Speaker Kuldeep Sharma and MLAs Randeep Surjewala and Kuldeep Bishnoi as members.

AICC general secretary incharge of Haryana Ghulam Nabi Azad declared the list today, downplaying the reasons behind its withdrawal earlier. “The previous list was withdrawn for a small and not a major reason. We wanted to form other committees and announce all committees together. The coordination committee has a mix of senior leaders and caste combinations,” he explained, even as his defence rang hollow as the Congress didn’t declare any new committee today.

Underlying tensions between various factions of the Haryana Congress evidently delayed the finalisation of  Congress’ Haryana plan with much of Azad’s time being consumed by consultations with state leaders on how to go forward and whether to replace Tanwar.

Though the majority of Congress MLAs in Haryana had favoured a change of guard in the state leadership, the party eventually decided to let Tanwar stay as state president and Kiran Choudhry as CLP Leader until the Lok Sabha polls. Both will officially be part of the ticket screening committee.

Hooda denied factionalism. He said the coordination committee would meet tomorrow to chalk out a plan.

Hooda’s unity claim will be tested soon with Azad today announcing that a bus carrying all Haryana Congress leaders would go around the state in a show of unity.

“When leaders sit together, move together and address crowds together, they become one. We will be chalking out a plan for the coordination committee campaign and the bus tour,” said Azad who has a history of such bus travels as AICC incharge of Andhra Pradesh in 1999 and Karnataka in 2003.

Asked if it was too late for a bus ride since LS polls had been declared, he said: “Haryana elections are still way off. We have time.” He also denied Hooda was ever upset with the coordination panel structure.

Coordination panel chief is not a constitutional post in the Congress. In Uttar Pradesh, for instance, the party’s LS coordination committee is headed by CLP Lleader Ajay Kumar Lallu.

It was being widely anticipated that while the Congress may not replace Tanwar, a Dalit state chief, in the aftermath of Jat agitation, it may name Hooda as the campaign committee chief, a post the party gave to Amarinder Singh in Punjab and Virbhadra Singh in Himachal before the Assembly elections in the two states. 

All eyes now are on who the Congress will name as party campaign chief in Haryana, a position seen as weighty as that of PCC chief and CLP Leader, who have an official role in screening names for the party ticket.

The committee is the united face of the party. The party will go to the people with a positive agenda and ‘winnability’ shall be the sole criterion for selection of nominees. All issues will be discussed at the meeting tomorrow. — Bhupinder Singh Hooda

When leaders sit together, move together and address crowds together, they become one. We will be chalking out a plan for the coordination committee campaign and the bus tour — Ghulam Nabi Azad, General Secretary Incharge of Haryana