Yatras, plots add to fault lines in poll-bound Haryana Congress

New Delhi: Within three weeks of the Congress central leadership, including party president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi, directing the party leaders of poll-bound Haryana to put up a joint front and avoid airing differences in public, party circles now sense signs of sharpening factional fault-lines in the state Congress in the competitive rush by many state leaders to hold separate shows of strength in the form of their respective yatras. While these yatras, ahead of the September-October assembly elections in the state, are ostensibly to expose the so-called administrative failures of the 10-year BJP rule in the state, the Congress campers see in its plots closer home.

The latest to hit the yatra politics is Congress MP Deepender Hooda with his 'Haryana Mange Hisab' yatra from July 15, which is expected to initially cover over a dozen assembly constituencies across nine districts with the plan to extend it to the rest of the state. His yatra also made the Congress circles both in Delhi and Haryana debate curiously whether it is designed to signal that the younger Hooda (46), is being handed over the faction's leadership mantle by his father, two-term CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda (76), ahead of the elections.

Given that Hooda Sr, leader of the Opposition in the assembly, controls the Haryana PCC leadership, the presence of state Congress president Uday Bhan to flag off Hooda Jr's yatra, thus giving it an official stamp, hardly surprised the party circles. But given that Hooda Jr is not heading the PCC or CLP or holding any senior AICC post -- he is a five-term MP and one of the invitees to the CWC -- and yet he is leading this yatra is being seen as part of an entitlement and a larger pre-poll projection at a time when there are many claimants to be the state Congress' chief ministerial face. This factional positioning of leaders recently prompted the AICC to state that the Haryana Congress will fight the polls "collectively" rather than project a pre-poll CM face.


Many Congress stake-holders also noticed that Hooda Jr's yatra commenced within days after AICC general secretary and former Haryana PCC president Kumari Selja, seen by many as the leader of the party faction opposed to the Hoodas, announced that she will lead a yatra across the urban belts of the state by this month-end against the BJP state government. This move came after Selja did a state-wide bus yatra last January, where another AICC general secretary Randeep Surjewala and former CLP leader Kiran Chowdhury (now in BJP) joined her amid many projecting that yatra as a show of strength against the Hooda group.

Many in the Congress also pointed out that while AICC general secretary in-charge Deepak Babaria had issued a public statement ahead of Selja's January yatra, asking the party workers to only participate in official functions.

These parallel yatra plots and the contributing growing factional tension in the Haryana Congress coincide with many in the party pitching for better and more effective AICC coordination with Haryana party leaders as party circles feel that the Congress in Haryana has a fighting chance to win the polls if the top state party leaders fight unitedly or can squander it if the high command fails to harmonise the faultlines.