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Haryana polls: For the Congress, why the battle lies within

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today edition dated September 23, 2024)
In March 2005, after almost weeklong tense parleys, the victorious Congress crowned a 57-year-old Bhupinder Singh Hooda as Haryana chief minister, overlooking the claim of three-time former CM Bhajan Lal, who was by then 74 years old. By far the party’s tallest leader, Bhajan Lal had the loyalty of most of the 67 Congress legislators who were elected to the 90-member assembly. Hooda on the other hand had won his spurs in the 1990s, defeating the Chautala patriarch Devi Lal in three back-to-back parliamentary polls in the Jat heartland of Rohtak; above all, he had whole-heartedly backed the then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in the party’s internal tussle. With the Gandhis putting their weight behind the ‘young’ Jat leader, the newly elected MLAs, too, decided to ditch the old veteran Bhajan Lal.
Two decades later, as Haryana readies for yet another state election on October 5, Hooda finds himself at a similar—if not the same—crossroads. At 76, he is ageing, and his younger bªte noire Kumari Selja, the 61-year-old Sirsa MP, has better access to the Gandhis. Just a few years ago, Hooda was part of the ‘G-23’, a group of Congress MPs who had demanded large-scale reforms in the party—perceived to be a rebellion against the Gandhi family’s dominance. Though he was given a free hand since2022 to run the party’s Haryana unit, there’s a feeling, say insiders, that his loyalties are “no longer unimpeachable”.
But the former two-term CM did deliver, as the Congress wrested five of the 10 Lok Sabha seats from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recent general election. A big factor was the mobilisation of the Jat vote behind him. Still, the party has refrained from anointing Hooda—the leader of the Opposition since 2019— as its chief ministerial candidate.
Selja’s loyalists argue that her face can help the Congress consolidate Dalit votes not just in Haryana but also in neighbouring Punjab, Rajasthan, western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Something similar to what the party had attempted with Charanjit Singh Channi’s surprise appointment as Punjab CM just three years ago. That experiment may have failed, but giving Haryana its first Dalit CM could well be a game-changer. It will also fit well with Rahul Gandhi’s aggressive stance on reservations and caste census, say insiders. The converse is equally true: estranging the Jats, who have only recently shed their fondness for the BJP, would affect the same political map. Even so, Selja’s presence is keeping the Hooda camp on tenterhooks. Recently, talking to media, she exuded confidence about a Congress win and said the high command will decide the CM, who could be a Dalit too.
The Congress, of course, wants both: its ambition is to create an umbrella coalition of Jats, Dalits and Muslims in Haryana. This strategy aims to leverage Hooda’s influence among the Jats, estimated to account for about a fourth of the state’s electorate, while simultaneously using Selja to tap the Dalit vote, a sizeable 20 per cent. The party hopes this combination, along with traditional Muslim support, could provide a winning formula in the upcoming election. That’s easier said than done, though.
While Jats and Muslims are likely to be with the Congress, the Dalit vote is less certain. They may have backed the Congress in the general election, especially owing to the Opposition bloc’s narrative about the Constitution being ‘under threat’, but this support could be less durable. What complicates the scenario are two other alliances: besides that of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar’s Aazad Samaj Party (ASP), too, has chosen to enter the fray as a partner of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP). The prospect of this demographic being fragmented makes Selja’s role all the more crucial.
The central leadership fears that aggressively backing Hooda could lead to counter-polarisation among other communities, say insiders. That said, the Congress hopes to make headway, riding on a decade long anti-incumbency sentiment against the BJP government. The inability of the Chautalas-led INLD and JJP to rise as viable alternatives has only added to its confidence. So much so that the Congress ended its alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) even after the two secured a combined vote share of 47.6 per cent in the Lok Sabha election, higher than the BJP’s 46.1 per cent. A split in these votes could play a spoiler in close contests, especially in north and central Haryana.
Sources say Rahul Gandhi had in fact tossed around the idea of bringing both AAP and the Samajwadi Party—two key Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) constituents—on board, but the Hooda camp vehemently opposed any such move.
There’s no doubt that Hooda has successfully channelised Jat resentment against the BJP rule—a phase of mutual belligerence that saw the violent quota agitation of 2016, waves of farmer protests and, more recently, the wrestlers’ stir in Delhi—into votes for the Congress. According to a Lokniti-CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies) post-poll survey, the Congress’s support among Jats jumped from 33 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls to 64 per cent this year. The support of this agrarian community is determinative in some 37 of Haryana’s 90 assembly seats.
To make the most of it, the Congress has fielded Olympian Vinesh Phogat—a leading face of the protest against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president and BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh—from the Jat-dominated Julana constituency. Insiders claim the push came from Hooda. Not just that, Hooda has also helped the Congress make inroads into the BJP’s non-Jat rainbow coalition, evident from the saffron party’s declining support among the Other Backward Classes (OBCs)—from 74 per cent to 44 per cent, according to the survey cited earlier.
The BJP is trying hard to fight anti-incumbency, having dropped 15 of its 41 MLAs. The Congress, on the other hand, has declared a rerun for its 28 sitting MLAs. And most of them swear by Hooda. Among them, Rao Dan Singh (Mahendragarh), Dharam Singh Chhoker (Samalkha) and Surender Panwar (Sonipat) are in the crosshairs of the Enforcement Directorate and Mamman Khan (Ferozepur Jhirka) was arrested for his alleged role in the Nuh riots last year. They all got the party ticket, say insiders, because of Hooda’s backing.
The former CM’s critics allege that he has teamed up with the AICC in-charge of Haryana, Deepak Babaria, to keep his intraparty rivals in check. Nevertheless, Selja, too, has managed to secure tickets for her loyalists, be it Pardeep Chaudhary (Kalka) or Shamsher Singh Gogi (Assandh).
Besides Selja, Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Surjewala, 57, too, is inimical to Hooda. To strengthen their post-poll bids for CM’s chair, both MPs were pushing hard to contest from their respective bastions of Uklana (Hisar) and Kaithal (Kurukshetra).Even other MPs, including Hooda’s son Deepender, expressed their desire to fight the election and kept the political pot boiling. Amid a lack of consensus, the declaration of candidates went on till the last day of filing the nominations on September 12. Finally, while Surjewala’s son Aditya got the nod from Kaithal, quite a few from both Hooda’s and Selja’s camps also made the cut. Though Selja has been denied a ticket, she can take comfort in the fact that in 2005, Hooda was Rohtak MP when he was made to resign and take over the state’s reins as CM.
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