Congress Plans Pan-State Bus Ride Of Haryana Leaders To Unite Warring Factions Ahead Of LS Polls

With voting for the 10 seats in Haryana scheduled for May 12, the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress has chalked out a strategy that the party thinks will bring all its warring state leaders together. Congress is planning to get its factional heads – former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, PCC chief Ashok Tanwar, former union minister Kumari Selja, senior leaders Kiran Chaudhary, Kuldeep Bishnoi, et al – on a bus that will travel across the state while campaigning for polls so that the party can present a united face.

Congress general secretary in-charge of party affairs in Haryana, Ghulab Nabi Azad said details of the itinerary are being finalised and the party hopes that travelling and dining together during the course of the campaign will help the satraps “put their differences aside and unite to fight the BJP” and regional rival, Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).

“This is a model I had started nearly 20 years ago when I was in charge of the party’s affairs in Karnataka and then replicated it successfully in Andhra Pradesh. I am sure that it would work in Haryana too,” Azad said. He added that his experience in Andhra, back in 2003-2004, was that while leaders may have their personal feuds, “after they travel together for a few days, spend time with each other, share meals, the differences disappear.”

The decision comes days after the Congress hurriedly withdrew a press release that named members of its coordination committee for Haryana, chaired by Hooda, minutes after it was put out on the party’s website. Party insiders had attributed the withdrawal of the communique to protests by Tanwar over Hooda being made chairman of the panel.

On Monday, with Tanwar seated beside him at a media briefing, Azad said the press release was withdrawn because the party wanted to declare a few other committees for Haryana simultaneously after ensuring that “all important leaders of the state representing various castes and parts of Haryana” were accommodated. The rationale seemed hard to digest as Azad then went on to “officially” list out the 15-member coordination panel – the same as the one that was earlier declared and withdrawn – while maintaining that the remaining committees will be announced in a few days.

The coordination committee will be headed by Hooda and have as its members Tanwar, Selja, AICC media cell chief Randeep Surjewala, Kiran Chaudhary, Kuldeep Bishnoi, Mahender Pratap Singh, Capt. Ajay Singh Yadav, Deepender Hooda, Navin Jindal, Kailash Rani, Anil Thakkar, Jaivir Singh Balmiki and Jaspal Singh Lali.

Party insiders say that while Azad’s idea to pack all warring Haryana Congress leaders in a bus and take them on a ride across the state to present a united face before the electorate may be a good one, it is possibly coming too late in the day.

Ever since he was appointed Haryana PCC chief in early 2014, Tanwar – a former MP from Sirsa and a young Dalit leader who has served as president of the Indian Youth Congress – has often been involved in an open fight with Bhupinder Hooda, who hold significant sway over the nureically significant Jat community of the state. The differences have come to fore at public rallies, including those addressed by Congress president Rahul Gandhi, and even in closed door strategy meetings of the party.

Recently, when Gandhi had convened a meeting of senior party leaders and state unit chiefs to discuss the party’s strategy for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and possible alliances with regional outfits, Tanwar, sources say, had remarked during the discussion that a better alternative would be to “stitch an intra-party alliance first” among the factional leaders.

While Hooda believes that the only way the Congress can revive itself in the state is by reaching out to the state’s Jat voters by having a strong leader from the community (read: himself or his son, Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda) as the PCC chief, Tanwar believes that the party must consolidate its base among non-Jats as collectively they are greater in number in the state. Among the Congress’ top line leadership in the state, the Hooda father-son duo, Kiran Chaudhary, and Surjewala are all Jats while Selja and Tanwar are Dalits.

The BJP, which managed to form its first government in the state in 2014, has consistently tried to consolidate the non-Jat community. The BJP’s decision to name a political greenhorn like Manohar Lal Khattar – a Punjabi Khatri – as chief minister of the state was part of this strategy and the party built on it steadily – the latest evidence of this was seen when it won the recent bypoll to the Jind assembly seat where the Congress fielded Surjewala, who stood a distant third, while the other Jat leader in the fray, Digvijay Chautala, finished second, behind the BJP’s Krishan Midha.