From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s loyalist Uday Bhan, a former 4-time MLA from Hodal, was on Wednesday named the new Haryana Congress President replacing Kumari Selja. Both outgoing and new state Congress presidents are from Scheduled Caste (Dalit). Hooda continues as the Opposition leader in Haryana Assembly in his capacity as leader of the Congress legislature party.
Hooda was reportedly offered to head the state unit, but he opted to be the CLP leader since he enjoys support of a majority of the party MLAs.
The changes in Haryana came as a part of series of revamping of the party in various states, just a day after the reshuffle in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh that goes to polls in a few months as party MP Pratibha Singh, widow of stalwart chief minister Virbhadra Singh, was made the state party president with four working chiefs to assist her while retaining 4-time MLA Mukesh Agnihotri as the CLP leader and senior leader Harshvardhan Chauhan as his deputy. Outgoing state president Sukhwinder Sindh Sukhu became chairman of the state campaign committee.
Also named were four working presidents in Haryana — Shruti Choudhry, Ram Kishan Gujjar, Jitender Kumar Bhardwaj and Suresh Gupta.
The exercise is to end the ongoing infighting in the party, ensuring a balance of Jats and Dalits. The announcement came after a series of meetings of the Congress high command with the warring senior party leaders.
On Wednesday, Deepender Hooda, MP son of Bhupinder Hooda, met Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Former chief minister Bhajan Lal’s son and a non-Jat leader in Haryana’s central area, Kuldeep Bishnoi, had also been meeting the Congress senior leadership in New Delhi seeking a significant role in the party’s state unit. Bishnoi, an MLA from Adampur, had met Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday as well as AICC general secretary K C Venugopal on Tuesday in New Delhi.
After meeting Venugopal, Bishnoi had said, “The meeting went well. I am satisfied with the meeting. I have been asked not to disclose anything further.” The party affairs in charge for Haryana Vivek Bansal had also met Venugopal on Monday.
