Congress in a bind over picking legislative party leader after shock Haryana defeat

Still in a daze over its surprise defeat in the Haryana Assembly polls, the Congress leadership now has at hand the tricky task of appointing the leader of its legislative party in the state assembly.

The 37-member Congress Legislative Party (CLP) on Friday (October 18) authorised the party’s national president, Mallikarjun Kharge, to appoint its leader.

The CLP, which met for the first time since the October 8 results returned the BJP to power in the state for an unprecedented third term, met for over 90 minutes during which Congress’ central observers – Ashok Gehlot, TS Singh Deo, Partap Singh Bajwa and Ajay Maken – spoke collectively and individually to newly elected MLAs of the party. The feedback received by the observers will also be submitted to Kharge.

Not an easy job for Kharge

While authorising the Congress president to appoint a CLP leader is standard practice in the party, making the pick won’t be easy for Kharge.

Also Read: Will analyse Haryana poll loss, have sought booth-level report: Kharge

“If it is just about who the majority of MLAs support, the choice is easy. Bhupinder Hooda (LoP in the last Haryana Assembly and a two-term former CM) had got over 70 candidates of his choice in the election and 30 of them won. The numbers are obviously on his side but given how the election went for us... everyone expected us to win but we didn’t. Hooda can’t escape the blame for what happened because he was the face of the campaign... the high command cannot go just by numbers but at the same time it can’t impose any of the five MLAs from the other side (Hooda rivals Kumari Selja and Randeep Surjewala) because they neither have support in the CLP nor the political heft required of an LoP,” one of the central observers told The Federal.

Kharge, who will appoint the new CLP leader after consultations with former party chief Sonia Gandhi, Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, will also take into account the feedback received by an intra-party panel tasked with assessing reasons for the Congress’ poll debacle.

‘Own blunders caused defeat’

The two-member panel, comprising Bhupesh Baghel and Harish Chaudhary, has already concluded its deliberations with Haryana Congress leaders and is in the process of compiling its report.

Congress insiders told The Federal that both, during discussions with the Baghel-led panel and at the CLP meeting, most of the party leaders agreed that the Congress lost the Haryana polls largely “due to our own blunders”. The assessment is in line with the curt observation Rahul Gandhi had made last week during a review of the party’s poll rout when, without naming individual leaders, he had noted that the Congress would have won the election “had some leaders not put their personal political interests above the interest of the party”.

The Congress’ official line post the rout has been that it lost Haryana largely due to manipulation with the EVMs. However, sources said that at the party’s internal deliberations, there is “near unanimity” that what really cost the Congress the elections was the infighting between Hooda and Selja, which “adversely impacted every aspect of the election campaign”.

Internal feud costs dear

“From ticket distribution to rebel candidates and then the Jat versus non-Jat consolidation and the fragmentation of the Dalit vote, which we had managed to consolidate in the Lok Sabha (election); everything goes back to the Hooda-Selja fight. Some candidates have also said that the state leadership misled the high command on different aspects of the campaign,” sources familiar with the discussions said.

Also Read: Haryana poll results: Congress submits 7 written complaints on EVMs to EC

As such, a senior party leader said, even though Hooda may have the numbers, it will be “very difficult” for the high command to back his claim for the CLP chief. “What message will we send if we go ahead with Hooda saheb even now... some candidates have also pointed out that this is the third straight election since 2014 where he (Hooda) had full control of the campaign and led us to defeat; can the leadership ignore this,” a senior Haryana Congress leader asked.

The leader also pointed out that even before the appointment of the CLP leader “we are moving towards the same situation in which we had landed in 2014... at that time, leaders like Chaudhary Birender Singh and Rao Inderjit Singh quit the party to join the BJP because of differences with Hooda; this year we lost Kiran Chaudhary (she joined the BJP in June) and now Ajay Yadav (former five-term MLA and chief of the Congress’ OBC wing) has resigned... if we still keep backing Bhupinder Hooda, the party may be left with no leader in Haryana except his loyalists”.

MLAs rally behind Hooda

What makes the situation trickier still is that with 30 MLA rallying behind him, the high command can also not snub Hooda entirely. Despite all the criticism directed at Hooda for running the Congress as his personal fief in Haryana, the central leadership is also aware that neither Selja nor Surjewala can match up to the electoral clout and resource mobilisation of the former Haryana CM and his MP son Deepender Hooda.

“The only way out right now is for the central leadership to make these leaders sit together and work out some sort of truce. Hooda has to make way for someone else; one solution could be that the party backs one of his loyalists who can work amicably with Selja and Surjewala also,” a Congress functionary close to Kharge said.

This functionary explained, “The caste equation will also need to be addressed. Many have suggested Geeta Bhukkal (five-term MLA from Jhajjar); she is a staunch Hooda loyalist but she is also a Dalit woman; appointing her will dent the BJP’s attacks about Congress mistreating Selja (also a Dalit)... she could be a good choice but the leadership will obviously have to see if she can work with Selja and other anti-Hooda leaders. If she is made the CLP leader, then we will have to choose a Jat or an OBC to replace Udai Bhan (also a Dalit) as the PCC chief... so it is not just about appointing CLP (leader) because PCC will also need changes... what is clear is that if CLP (leader) is from Hooda camp, PCC (chief) will have to be from anti-Hooda camp and vice versa”.

‘Need to discipline Hooda’

Congress insiders also said that while the party high command “needs to discipline Hooda”, it is “equally important that some sort of action is taken against Selja and Surjewala too”.

Also Read: Haryana poll results: How independents, AAP, BSP damaged Congress's chances

“It is not as if everything wrong was Hooda’s fault alone. The kind of statements Selja and Surjewala made throughout the campaign; their indiscipline also damaged the party and that cannot be countenanced,” a Haryana Congress MP told The Federal.

The MP, however, also cautioned, “Whatever is done will have to be done very carefully so that we don’t end up giving more ammunition to the BJP... they (the BJP) have already been going to town saying by sidelining Selja in the campaign, the Congress showed its anti-Dalit face; so obviously if any action is initiated against her, the BJP will take advantage.”

For the Congress high command, now in the midst of navigating the party through another round of extremely crucial and equally tricky elections – in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, choosing the Haryana CLP leader isn’t a puzzle but just a piece in a larger jigsaw.