Kumari Selja, Bhupinder Hooda, Rahul Gandhi
The first full-time session of the Haryana Assembly is about to begin but the Congress is yet to elect its leader. It has been 45 days since the election results were announced. The question is, why has Congress still not made a decision on the position a month later?
The leader of the legislative party is the leader of the opposition party in parliament. The Opposition Leader’s job is to keep opposition MLAs united and press the government on major issues.
Can Congress not recover from defeat?
A major reason why opposition leaders are unable to make decisions is the inability to recover from defeat. Many big figures in Congress are still busy looking back on this failure. The party has also continued to complain to the electoral commission. The party believes that its candidates were defeated in many booths due to polling and EVMs.
The Congress formed a committee headed by former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and Rajasthan Congress leader Harish Chaudhry to review the failure in Haryana.
The committee was asked to examine all aspects that led to the party having to face defeat. The committee was also entrusted with the task of identifying the leaders responsible for the failure.
The committee is said to be yet to submit its complete report to the Congress high command.
The laughter about the face continues
After winning this election, 37 members of Congress have entered the House of Representatives. Among them, 31 MLAs belong to the Bhupinder Singh Hooda group. Hudas are trying to install someone close to them as opposition leader. The organization also recommended many names to the Congress high command for this purpose.
Meanwhile, powerful leaders Kumari Selja and Randeep Surjewala insisted on having someone different from Hooda’s group as leader of the opposition. Tensions also emerged at the legislative party meeting in Chandigarh. However, the final decision was left to the High Command.
The Congress high command is currently busy with the Jharkhand and Maharashtra elections.
Caste equation is also a factor
In Haryana, the Congress has been making headway with the help of Jat and Dalit equations. Ahead of the 2024 elections, Chaudhary Udaybhan of the Dalit community has been appointed as the president of the country, while Bhupinder Singh Hooda of the Jat community was appointed Leader of the Opposition.
This time the Congress unilaterally secured the votes of the Jat community. There is a gap in the Dalit vote bank this time compared to the Lok Sabha elections. Dalits and Jats make up about 40% of Haryana’s population. In this case, Congress is said to be once again trying to resolve the equation.
Last time Udayban from the Dalit community was the national president. Udayban could not win MLA from Khodhar. In this case, his chair is also in danger. One of the reasons for not electing the leader of the legislative chamber was allegedly the decision of the state president.
Apart from these three reasons, the Congress high command is also confused about the choice of leader of the Opposition. If any group takes heavy responsibility and is accused of defeating Congress candidates, it will bring shame to the party.
That’s why Congress wants to decide on the issue only after understanding all angles.
Congress fails over Haryana infighting
The Congress won 44 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, but in the Assembly elections held four years later, the number of seats was reduced to 37. The main reason for the failure of the Congress was internal factionalism. The Congress lost around a dozen seats due to tensions between Seliya and Huda factions.
Many people close to Kumari Seliya also face defeat in this election. Among them, the names of Pradeep Chaudhary and Shamsher Gogi stand out. After the election defeat, former Asund MLA Gogi directly attacked Hooda Group.
Here too, the Congress had to face defeat in Selja panchayat and Assembly constituency. Experts believe that the entire election in Haryana became a Jat vs. non-Jat issue and hence the traditional Dalits in the Congress also switched to the BJP.
