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Journalism of Courage
Seen as charting a path distinct from veteran Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the Haryana Congress as the election season picks heat in the state, Randeep Surjewala has been missing from official PCC events, even as along with fellow party leaders Kumari Selja and Kiran Choudhry, he holds separate protest marches and press conferences against the Manohar Lal Khattar government and travels the state.
His rivalry with Hooda well known, Surjewala tells The Indian Express: “The only time I have been invited to any such (PCC) programme was when party in-charge of Haryana (Deepak Babaria) called a meeting. Otherwise, I have never received any invitation.”
He also asserts that as it prepares for the 2024 polls to both the Lok Sabha and Assembly, the Congress should make sure to accommodate all those “committed” Congress people “who are currently not heard within the structure of the party”.
The Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan has had mixed success in his electoral forays, losing back-to-back polls in 2019 to the Lok Sabha and Assembly in Haryana. However, his graph is on the rise lately after the Congress’s impressive Karnataka win, where Surjewala played a crucial role as Congress state-in-charge. On Monday, the Congress named him as the observer for Madhya Pradesh, another key state, where elections are due soon and where the party is seen as having a chance of winning.
Surjewala says that he has no problem with the Congress giving important positions to “rejects of the BJP and Indian National Lok Dal who have come into the Congress”. “But the original Congress workers who have struggled, they are feeling left out, have no political space. The original Congress people… their voice also needs to be heard.”
The party should raise issues irrespective of “the personal aspirations of leaders to acquire a particular post”, Surjewala adds, talking particularly of matters involving the SCs, backward classes and the urban population, which is nearly 45% of the total Haryana voters. “These are the sections which brought the BJP to power and have been deceived irreparably by the Khattar-JJP government. They need to return to the Congress fold, and for that the politics has to be issue-based, emanate from Congress ideology, and be driven by grassroots agitation. We are doing that.”
About his equations with Hooda, Surjewala says: “We have no personal grudge with either Mr Hooda or anybody else. We believe that it will take the entire Congress to bring the party back to power… not just a section alone. Politics in Haryana has to be ideology-driven, issue-based, agitation-oriented rather than personality-centric. And, that also includes me.”
Does it mean that he, Choudhry and Selja are throwing their hat in the ring as an alternative to Hooda? Surjewala replies: “Aspiration in politics is a good thing. It is part of the political growth of an individual. But it cannot be at the cost of the party and its workers or its ideology. So, my good wishes to everybody, including myself, Kumari Selja and Kiran Choudhry. We are healthy political competitors, along with Hooda, but our aspirations have to be tamed before the growth and ideology of the party, and the voice of Congress workers.”
He says the three of them will continue to raise their voice whenever there is an issue “plaguing the people, harming their interests and has the potential to bring down the BJP-JJP government”.
Surjewala dismisses the Opposition’s accusation of their separate programmes as another sign of factionalism within the Congress. “It is rather the BJP that is a house divided into a thousand parts… The opinion of many disgruntled MLAs and ministers against Chief Minister Khattar is well-known. The war going on between Khattar’s party and Dushyant Chautala’s (JJP) is for everybody to see. We are not a house divided, we are only raising people’s issues to the best of our understanding and wisdom,” he says.
Asserting that the Congress would do well in the coming Lok Sabha polls, Surjewala says: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing the maximum anti-incumbency. His leadership stands rejected. Issues raised by Shri Rahul Gandhi during his padyatra, including unemployment, economic recession, back-breaking price rise, as also the politics of hate and division based on caste and religion, resonate the most in Haryana. You will see a clean sweep for the Congress party, both in Parliament and Assembly.”
On the chance of the Congress declaring Hooda as the party’s chief ministerial candidate in 2024, Surjewala says: “We are loyal soldiers of the party and committed generationally to its ideology. We shall do what is in the best interest of the Congress in order to strengthen it and to bring it to power… In 2005, Bhajan Lalji staked his claim and also claimed support of three-fourth of the legislators, but the party chose (Hooda) and everybody fell in line, including me, a claimant at that time.”
Speaking about their plans, Choudhry says: “We shall be going to all the districts. We have already covered Karnal, now we shall be holding a demonstration in Kaithal, followed by a huge gathering in Bhiwani. We are raising the issues of public concern, which we feel have not been raised the way they should have been.”
Sejla talks about the Nuh violence, saying it has revealed “the incompetence of the BJP-JJP coalition government”. “Their entire intelligence network failed. Ensuring people’s safety and security is the prime job of the state government, they neither ensured it before the violence, nor took adequate steps after the incident. There should be a probe monitored by a high court judge to unearth the conspiracy.”
