CONG RELEASES LIST OF 8 NAMES FOR HARYANA, FIELDS DEEPENDER HOODA FROM ROHTAK SEAT

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Thursday announced the names of eight candidates, for the ongoing polls, in Haryana, where ally Aam Aadmi Party will fight from Kurukshetra. The Gurgaon seat is undecided.

The Congress fielded former MP and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Kumari Selja from the reserved seat of Sirsa and Varun Choudhary from another reserved seat of Ambala. It fielded former MP Jai Prakash from Hisar and repeated sitting MP Deepender Singh Hooda from Rohtak.

The Congress has also given ticket to NSUI’S state unit chief Divyanshu Budhiraja from Karnal and Satpal Brahmachari from Sonipat.

The Bhupender Hooda lobby has been able to push its candidate Rao Dhan Singh — a sitting MLA, from Bhiwani-mahendragarh. In Faridabad, the Congress fielded Mahendra Pratap.

The party is yet to decide on its Gurgaon candidate amid a tussle between the Hooda camp and the other dominant lobby, which has party general secretary Randeep Surjewala and Kumari Selja.

In an earlier meeting, the two leaders vehemently opposed the candidature of former MP Raj Babbar, who was backed by the Hooda lobby.

In the Congress’s Central Election Committee meeting on April 14, the objections raised by Selja and Surjewala led former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to intervene in the matter. “She proposed that a committee should be formed to look into some seats and give further recommendation,” a CEC member said. As a result, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge formed a three-member committee. Haryana was the only state pending for the Congress to announce its candidates for the ongoing polls.