NEW DELHI: Kumari Selja, senior Congress leader from Haryana and a prominent Dalit face of the grand old party, has added an interesting new twist to the electoral battle in Haryana, which will vote on October 5 to elect a new government.
Selja, who is AICC general secretary and Congress MP from Sirsa, has stayed away from party’s campaigning amid reports that she is unhappy over being sidelined during ticket distribution for the assembly elections.The Congress campaign in Haryana has been dominated by former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who, reports say, is calling the shots within the party, much to the discomfort of other senior leaders from the state like Selja and Randeep Singh Surjewala.
The BJP has been quick to capitalise on Selja’s reported “discontent” against Hooda and accuse the Congress of insulting dalit leaders in the party. Union home minister Amit Shah led this attack targeting Rahul Gandhi at an election rally for insulting “sister” Selja. In fact, days before Amit Shah’s attack, former BJP chief minister ML Khattar had invited Selja to join the saffron party.
As expected, Selja rejected BJP’s overtures and said “I am a Congressperson, I will remain a Congressperson”. “Since I was silent they (the BJP) started talking but there is no such thing, they also know it, they were also doing politics but they know and everyone knows, Selja is a Congressi,” the Congress leader told agencies. She accused the BJP of using her issue to divert attention from the failures of its government and promised to join the party campaign soon.
Politically correct statements notwithstanding, the fact remains that the Congress may stand to lose if the BJP manages to drive home the perception of “unhappy Selja” in the poll-bound state. Haryana has 90 seats out of which 17 are reserved for the Scheduled Castes.
In the 2019 assembly elections, Congress won 7 of these seats while the BJP could bag 5. Of the rest, JJP took 4 while one was won by an independent. The BJP’s 2019 tally was four less than its 2014 score of 9 seats, while the Congress gained 3 seats compared to 2014 polls. From 2014 to 2019, the ruling party lost 3 seats – Mulana, Sadhura and Israna – to the Congress, while the grand old party lost one seat – Hodal – to the BJP.
Clearly, the Congress would not want to fritter away the advantage it had gained on these 17 seats in 2019. Selja has announced to join the party campaign from September 26. She has met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and has reiterated her commitment to the party. However, it is important that Selja and Hooda, the two top leaders of the state, remain on the same page, not just in the run up to elections but also after the results are out.
In the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, the Congress consolidated its 2019 assembly gains with a strong showing. It wrested 5 seats from the BJP to make the scoreline 5-5 in the state. The party is confident of returning back to power in the state after 10 years and would not want factionalism to play the spoilsport.
After all, Congress has seen the adverse impact of factionalism in Rajasthan where Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot were engaged in a bitter tussle for nearly 3 years and the party eventually lost its government in the state to BJP.
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