In much-delayed Haryana revamp, Congress gives equal share to Hooda, Selja factions

Indian Express

19 hours ago

The Haryana Congress has taken the first step to set its house in order, announcing a list of presidents for 32 districts late on Tuesday, in what is the party's first organisational revamp at the block- and district-level in over a decade.
Through the appointments, which were announced by AICC general secretary K C Venugopal after two earlier deadlines were put off in June and July, the Congress has attempted to balance two rival party factions – the one led by former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the other by Sirsa MP Kumari Selja. The party has also tried to balance caste equations by attempting to shun its pro-Jat image, and to sharpen its focus on rural and urban outreach.
'I want to convey my best wishes to all the new appointees. The new district chiefs will ensure that the Congress is rejuvenated and has a new-found strength on the ground,' Hooda said.
Around 15 of the new district chiefs are said to be from the Hooda camp while 12 are seen to be close to Selja. A known detractor of the former CM, Shamsher Singh Gogi, who is seen to be close to Selja, said the appointments were made 'purely on the basis of merit'. 'The new chiefs have been appointed on the basis of the workers' performance. They will give immense strength to the party at the grassroots-level. We are all party workers and will work together,' he said.
In a bid to counter Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini's influence, who belongs to the OBC community, the party has picked 10 OBC faces as district chiefs. Six others are Jats and five each belong to the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Brahmin communities. The Punjabi, Rajput, Muslim and Sikh communities are represented by one member each.
In cities like Ambala, the party has appointed three district chiefs – city, rural and urban – while it has gone for two district presidents (urban and rural) in nine districts.
Three Congress candidates – Parvinder Pari (Ambala Cantt), Anirudh Chaudhary (Bhiwani Rural) and Vardhan Yadav (Gurugram Rural) – who lost last year's Assembly polls also made the cut. While Pari lost the Ambala Cantt seat, Chaudhary and Vardhan lost the Tosham and Badshahpur seats respectively.
Others leaders who have been elevated include Pawan Agarwal (Ambala City), Dushyant Chauhan (Ambala rural), Pradeep Gulia (Bhiwani Urban), Sushil Dhanak (Charkhi Dadri), Baljeet Kaushik (Faridabad), Arvind Sharma (Fatehabad), Pankaj Dawar (Gurugram Urban), Brij Lal Khoval (Hisar Rural), Bajrang Das Garg (Hisar Urban), Sanjay Yadav (Jhajjar), Rishi Pal (Jind), Ramchander Gujjar (Kaithal), Rajesh Vaid (Karnal Rural), Parag Gaba (Karnal Urban), Mewa Singh (Kurukshetra), Satyavir Yadav (Mahendragarh), Shahida Khan (Mewat, Nuh), Netrapal Adhana (Palwal), Sanjay Chauhan (Panchkula), Ramesh Malik (Panipat Rural), Subhash Chand Chawri (Rewari Rural), Praveen Chaudhary (Rewari Urban), Balwan Singh Ranga (Rohtak Rural), Kuldeep Singh (Rohtak Urban), Santosh Beniwal (Sirsa), Sanjeev Kumar Dahiya (Sonipat Rural), Kamal Dewan (Sonipat Urban), Nar Pal Singh (Yamunanagar Rural) and Devendra Singh (Yamunanagar Urban).
The appointments come two months after Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met the state leadership in Chandigarh, where he said candidates who work for the party and 'not a particular leader' must be identified and shortlisted for the posts of district presidents.
Following the meeting, held as a part of the party's nationwide Sangathan Srijan Abhiyan, AICC Haryana in-charge B K Hariprasad announced a list of 69 observers, who were tasked with building the party's organisational cadre across the state.
Since it first lost power to the BJP in 2014, the party's state unit has been riven with fissures, with five AICC in-charges appointed in the last six years.
Senior BJP leader and minister Anil Vij said little seems to have changed. Likening the process of appointing district presidents in the Congress to 'distribution of ghee agency rights', Vij said, 'In democratic parties, elections are first held at the block level, then at the district, state, and finally the national-level. However, in the Congress, the process starts from appointing a national (ghee) distributor, then state-level distributors, and finally district-level distributors. Now, it has appointed its district presidents. They will appoint office-bearers at the local level now,' he said.