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Why there are question marks about Congress readiness for Haryana civic polls

For the past 11 years, the party has not been able to appoint office bearers, including at the local level, because of factional feuds in the state unit.

For the past 11 years now, Haryana Congress has functioned without most of the office-bearers at the block, district, and state levels. ( Udai Bhan @INCUdaiBhan/X)

Months after the Congress lost the Haryana Assembly elections, a poll battle many expected it to win after two terms of BJP rule, the party continues to be hampered by a lack of coordination and factional feuds. This has raised questions about the party’s ability to launch an effective campaign for the March 2 civic body elections.

For the past 11 years now, Haryana Congress has functioned without most of the office-bearers at the block, district, and state levels. Party leaders said state unit president Udai Bhan had approved a list of the office-bearers last year and it was sent to the high command. However, with different factions in the party raising objections, the appointments were not cleared.

“If the Congress had a strong organisation in Haryana, the BJP would not have touched the 20-seat mark in the Assembly polls. This (lack of organisation) is among the weaknesses (in the party) that we are removing,” senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Birender Singh told the media on Wednesday.

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In December, Bhan released a list of the party’s in-charge for all 22 districts with the March 2 civic body elections in mind. However, the AICC’s Haryana in-charge, Dipak Babaria, objected to it, saying that the recommendations from all the state leaders must be considered. The following month, Babaria released a list of the party’s district in-charges, conveners, co-conveners, and members of committees for the north and south zones to manage the civic polls.

However, this time, the Congress’s Ambala MP, Varun Choudhary, opposed it. “Some names on the list are not even members of the party, some are not active on the ground, and some others had contested the 2024 Assembly elections against the party,” he wrote in a letter to Babaria. Amid objections and counter-objections, the appointments were held up.

Birender Singh said the Congress could tide over these problems. “Ups and downs are part of politics. The Congress ruled Delhi for 15 years when Sheila Dikshit was the CM. This time, the Congress has not won any seats in the Assembly polls, but the next time, some other party may get zero.”

At present, Bhan is at the helm of the party and there are 190 delegates of the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) and All India Congress Committee (AICC) members from the state.

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State Congress leaders said party affairs ran smoothly, down to the block level, till 2014 under Phool Chand Mullana who is a loyalist of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The Congress high command subsequently replaced Mullana with then Lok Sabha MP Ashok Tanwar. Sources said the functioning of the organisation was affected by differences between the Tanwar and Hooda camps.

In April 2022, the Congress appointed Bhan, also a Hooda loyalist, as state president, replacing former Union Minister Kumari Selja, but the problem of factionalism has continued to dog the party as the Hooda and Selja camps did not see eye to eye. After the party failed to recapture power last year, factionalism was blamed for the defeat.