Newsmaker | He kept the limelight on himself. Now, Bhupinder Singh Hooda set to feel the cold

That the combative veteran made the Congress campaign all about himself was characteristic of how he has run the roost in the party for the past two decades – right from 2005 when he outsmarted the then mighty Bhajan Lal to become the CM for the first time. Till then, Hooda was a parliamentarian, with multiple terms as MP.

With the might of the influential and dominant Jat community behind him, Hooda ensured that in the Haryana Congress, a leader or a functionary could either be his loyalist or a detractor. There could be no fence-sitters.

It also helped Hooda survive several controversies during his two terms, apart from intra-party tussle and allegations of corruption and favouritism.

While the 2014 surprise loss to the BJP, which was till then seen as a weak force in the state, came as a blow to Hooda’s dominance, in the years that followed, the Congress again virtually handed over the reins of the state party to him.

In 2016, Hooda was blamed for the shock defeat of R K Anand – a 10, Janpath loyalist and the Congress’s official candidate – in the Rajya Sabha elections in Haryana.

In 2020, Hooda was a key member of the Group of 23 senior leaders who wrote to then party president Sonia Gandhi seeking reforms in the party organisation.

But nothing dented Hooda’s fortunes, and rather bowing to the pressure of his actions, the Congress conceded and, in 2022, made his close aide Udai Bhan the state president, replacing Hooda rival Kumari Selja. With Hooda himself the CLP chief, it made his control of the party state unit total.

While Selja has been sulking since then, Hooda’s complete dominance means other detractors who didn’t fall in line quit the party. Even in the days leading up to the Assembly elections, the exit continued, with influential leader Kiran Choudhry leaving and joining the BJP over denial of tickets. Her daughter Shruti won from Tosham by 14,257 votes on the BJP ticket.

In fact, as many as 72 of the 89 candidates fielded by the Congress were seen as Hooda’s loyalists, with rivals Selja (a Lok Sabha MP and AICC general secretary) and Randeep Singh Surjewala (a Rajya Sabha MP and AICC general secretary) managing tickets for only a handful of supporters. Selja reportedly got nine tickets and Surjewala even less.

Even the campaign carried a complete Hooda imprint, with the former CM leading along with his Lok Sabha MP son Deepender from the front, and Bhan the effective second lead. Selja and Surjewala openly sulked, with Selja’s absence from the campaign noted by all, including the BJP. Till the end, she also maintained that she was very much in the CM race, and that there was no guarantee that the post was Hooda’s.

While he might have weathered many a storm, this Haryana defeat may be hard for Hooda to live down as it was seen as the Congress’s election to lose. The BJP government was facing severe anti-incumbency, a reflection of which was seen in the Lok Sabha elections when its tally came down from 10 to five.

Questions are now set to be asked about the excessive Jat focus of the Congress campaign under Hooda, helping the BJP rally the anti-Jat votes. To make it worse, the Congress did not even sweep the Jat strongholds. The heat will singe Hooda, and could also scald Deepender.

While few would write off Hooda, the fact remains that the battle-hardened veteran will be 82 by the time the next Assembly elections come around. It is a mistake to write off any politician, but the road is getting harder just as age is catching up.