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Three Haryana Congress leaders want high command to show Azad the door
Blame leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad for weakening the Congress besides its narrow defeat in Haryana in 2019.
A day after Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad demanded sweeping changes in the party following its poor performance in the Bihar assembly elections and byelections, three Haryana unit leaders accused him of weakening the party and urged the high command to show him the door.
Former Haryana ministers Subhash Batra and Krishan Murti Hooda besides Kuldeep Bishnoi, the Adampur Congress MLA and former chief minister Bhajan Lal’s younger son, said Azad, who was nominated five times by the Congress to the Upper House of Parliament, is now raising his voice for elections in the party.
Azad is the leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha.
Addressing a press conference in Rohtak, Batra and Krishan Murti Hooda blamed Azad for the poor performance of the Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Haryana besides the failure to form a government in the state after last year’s assembly elections.
“Azad claims there is five-star culture in the party which is wrong. He himself lives in five stars and never interacts with workers. We have always met him in five stars. He did not conduct a single district level meeting when he was Haryana in-charge ahead of last year’s elections. The party should throw him out along with Kapil Sibal and former minister Anand Sharma. The trio is making efforts to divide the party at the behest of the BJP,” Batra said and Krishan Murti Hooda agreed.
AZAD HAS NO MASS SUPPORT: BISHNOI
In a video message, Bishnoi said Azad had won only three elections in his life but remained in the Rajya Sabha for five terms with the support of the top brass.
“I have won six elections so far and I know Azad has no mass support in Jammu and Kashmir. No one bothers about him in J&K and he is advocating elections from the booth to national levels. He is asking for reforms in the organisation, which is a good step, but I want to ask him why didn’t he ask for the same when he was nominated youth president of J&K and later of the nation, too. Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi is working hard with his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra under the leadership of party chief Sonia Gandhi,” Bishnoi said.
The Adampur MLA accused former J&K chief minister Azad of weakening the Congress and held him responsible for not forming the government in Haryana in 2019.
“He was solely responsible for the Congress’s narrow defeat in last year’s assembly elections. If he was not the party affairs in-charge of Haryana, we would have been in power in the state,” Bishnoi said.
GUNNING FOR EX-CM HOODA, TOO
All three leaders belong to the anti-Bhupinder Singh Hooda camp and had left the party when Hooda became chief minister in 2005. Bishnoi’s father Bhajan Lal formed the Haryana Janhit Congress.
The former ministers said they will protest against Bhupinder Singh Hooda too if he indulges in anti-party activities.
Hooda was among the 23 party leaders who had written to Sonia Gandhi, demanding changes in the party organisation.
