Kamal Nath to meet Haryana Cong leaders today
CAMP RIVALRIES, PROLONGED WAR OF WORDS HAVE KEPT PARTY LEADERS BUSY
CHANDIGARH: With leaders of rival camps hitting out at each other, the Congress high command has called a meeting of top leaders of faction-ridden Haryana Congress in Delhi on Wednesday.
All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge of party affairs in Haryana, Kamal Nath, will chair the meeting. The meeting has been convened after some squabbling leaders had meet the AICC general secretary in the past few days to complain against each other, said a party leader, requesting anonymity.
Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar, Congress Legislature Party leader (CLP) Kiran Choudhry, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, former minister Capt Ajay Singh Yadav, MLAs Kuldeep Bishnoi and Randeep Surjewala, Rajya Sabha MPs Kumari Selja and Shadi Lal Batra, former speaker Kuldeep Sharma and former state unit chief Phool Chand Mullana have been called for the meeting.
“The internal bickering has left the party in disarray. There is a need to work out a truce, get all leaders to work together and raise issues of public importance,” he said.
Though the two sides have been speaking against each other for many months, their bickering flared up into a full-blown war after the CLP leader gave a statement praising chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar. About a dozen MLAs loyal to Hooda lashed out at Choudhry one after the other.
They criticised Choudhary for praising someone who, according to them, is “indulging in witchhunt against the Congress leaders”, calling for her removal from the post of CLP leader.
She also accused the rival camp of deliberately misinterpreting her comment and blowing things out of proportion to suit their political interests.
Kamal Nath, who was appointed in-charge of Haryana last month, had denied any groupism in the state Congress. “We need coordination. A coordination committee will have to be formed,” he said after his first meeting with the party leaders in Chandigarh. But the war of words has only intensified since then.