The demand by 31 of the 37 party MLAs at a Wednesday gathering here was timed ahead of Friday’s CLP meeting to elect its leader in Chandigarh for which the party central leadership has deputed observers.
Congress circles see this as a way of these MLAs signalling to the party high command to take note of their majority view, and act in accordance with it soon, even if the CLP meet does the conventional act of passing a resolution, authorising the party president to nominate the CLP leader. The AICC would prefer the authorisation route than an instant election at the CLP meet through secret ballot or show of hands.
This show of strength is seen by many in the party as the resolve of the Hooda camp to maintain its hold in the Haryana party affairs when its in-house rivals are pushing for a new order after the poll defeat. The CLP leader’s choice, even if through the nomination route, will reflect the AICC’s attitude.
Incidentally, the AICC observers to the CLP meeting include Ashok Gehlot and Ajay Maken, who have personal experiences of how majority views of MLAs can work.
Gehlot had cited the majority support of MLAs in the CLP for him to repeatedly thwart Sachin Pilot’s attempts to replace him as the Rajasthan chief minister. It was the move by AICC observers to Rajasthan — Maken and Mallikarjun Kharge — to ignore the majority support for Gehlot and opposition to Pilot that resulted in those party MLAs rejecting the AICC dictate in 2022 to hold a CLP meeting and pass a resolution to authorise the then party chief Sonia Gandhi to elect a new CLP leader.The party circles are guessing whether Hooda will opt to continue as the CLP leader or will prefer a loyalist, even among the non-Jat MLAs, to succeed him. When contacted by ET, Hooda said: “The meeting of MLAs (in Delhi) was to discuss the election outcome. The CLP meeting is scheduled for Friday. The elected party MLAs often express their views and sentiments, and it is the party leadership that takes the decision on the CLP leader.”Most of the half a dozen party MLAs who didn’t turn up at the meeting were the loyalists of AICC general secretary Kumari Selja, who heads the anti-Hooda faction in the Haryana Congress. Asked about her views on the CLP leadership, Selja said: “The Congress tradition is that the elected party MLAs authorise the high command to name the CLP leader and the high command makes the choice by balancing various factors.”
While the Congress loss in Haryana has led to factional blame-game and demand for fixing accountability, the AICC decision to allege tampering of electronic voting machines meant all those who took key election management decisions are now diverting focus to a ‘technical probe’ of how EVMs fared.
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