Took stand for party discipline, inclusive Haryana: Gurugram MP

Hours after walking off the stage midway through a speech at the state-level Vibhajan Vibhishika Smriti Diwas function here, Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh told The Tribune in an exclusive interview that Haryana’s political and governance space could not be allowed to become a “Punjabi-only show”.

Singh said he walked out because he felt his seniority, party protocol and the “self-respect of locals” had been disregarded on stage. “I took a stand for party discipline and for a caste-inclusive Haryana for all 36 castes of Haryana,” he said, making it clear that the walkout was not an impulsive act but the culmination of repeated instances of disregard for seniority and protocol.

He claimed his name did not figure in the initial round of invitations circulated for the event. He said it was only after Haryana BJP president Dr Archana Gupta treated it as a party event that his name was added at the last moment, under the heading “esteemed presence”.

The trigger for the walkout, Singh said, came after BJP national president Nitin Nabin addressed the gathering. He said following Nabin’s speech, local community leader Dharamdev Maharaj was invited to speak, while Singh’s name was missing from the list of speakers.

“It is like any of us, any of the Cabinet ministers, taking the stage after the PM has spoken. Does that happen? It was wrong,” he said, arguing that once the party’s national president had addressed a gathering, allowing another speaker was contrary to protocol.

He also questioned what he described as an anomaly in the invitation, which named two chairpersons — CM Nayab Singh Saini and Union minister Manohar Lal Khattar. “There should be some logic to how the party remains disciplined,” he said. “I have been facing this ignorance of protocols and seniority for a long time.”

His strongest criticism was directed at what he described as the “Punjabi-centric” character of the event and, more broadly, state politics. Pointing to the composition of the Gurugram Municipal Corporation, he said only two of its 36 councillors were Punjabi. “It doesn’t work with just one community,” he said.

Singh said the memory of Partition belonged equally to every community in Haryana and should not be associated with any one group. “I want a unified Haryana of 36 ‘biradaris’,” Singh added.