Congress leaders scuffle at state body poll meeting in Chandigarh

CHANDIGARH: The ongoing rift between former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar touched a new low with the two getting into heated arguments with each other and with other senior leaders — even physically pushing each other — during a meeting on state organisational polls in Chandigarh on Thursday.

The meeting was convened by returning officer (RO) appointed by the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) for the state organisational polls, Pradeep Kumar Jain, a former Union minister.

Most Congress MLAs, belonging to Hooda camp, besides Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda, and Rajya Sabha members Kumari Selja and Shadi Lal Batra and Tanwar attended the meeting. No MLA from the Hooda camp had attended a similar meeting held last month, and hence Jain convened another meeting on Thursday. Even as tempers ran high, arguments between Hooda supporters and Tanwar could be heard outside the meeting hall at the party office in Sector 9 throughout the meeting, which lasted for about three hours.

Party leaders who did not want to be named said the situation became tense when Palwal MLA Karan Dalal and Kharkhauda MLA Jaivir Balmiki pushed around party general secretary Hariom Kaushik and made him sit in his chair after a bout of heated arguments.

Some MLAs had alleged that members enrolled by them for the district and state organisational elections had not be included in the final lists. Kaushik repeatedly got up, rubbishing all charges. “MLAs had to push him down and make him sit as it was the RO’s meeting and he kept on interrupting,” a senior MLA said.

The meeting took an ugly turn when Tanwar said that enrolled members’ lists had been finalised. On this, Hooda said that since the list had been finalised, there was “no point” in holding the meeting as there were allegations that these lists could be fake. Hooda even got up to leave the meeting. Tanwar retorted, saying it was “nonsense” and then all MLAs shouted at Tanwar for using such a word.

However, when Jain pacified members and requested Hooda not to leave, Geeta Bhukkal, without directly naming Tanwar, pointed out that it was sad that some people did not consider Hooda a leader. As several MLAs backed Bhukkal, Tanwar insisted he had never made any such statement against Hooda.

Interestingly, when interacting with newspersons, Jain, Hooda and Tanwar, repeatedly insisted that the meeting went off peacefully.Of total 17 MLAs, ten attended the meeting, CLP leader Kiran Chaudhry, Randeep Surjewala, Kuldeep Sharma, Kuldeep Bishnoi, Renuka Bishnoi, Lalit Nagar and Uday Bhan could not make it to the meeting for different reasons.

ARGUMENTS BETWEEN HOODA SUPPORTERS AND ASHOK TANWAR COULD BE HEARD OUTSIDE THE MEETING HALL AT PARTY OFFICE IN SECTOR 9, WHERE THE MEETING LASTED FOR THREE HOURS