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Haryana: Sampat quits Congress, says party ignored him
Sampat Singh had quit the INLD and joined the Congress in July 2009 after serving with the Chautala clan for 32 years, he joined BJP in 2019 and returned to Congress in 2024
Former Haryana finance minister and senior Congress leader Sampat Singh on Sunday said he had resigned from the primary membership of the party. Speculations were rife that he was about to join the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), but no comment came from him on that. Talking to mediapersons, he said that he was ignored by the party, particularly former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, as he (Sampat) was denied ticket twice — in 2019 and 2024. A month ago, he had taken potshots at Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
In his resignation letter to Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, the six-time MLA described how he was sidelined despite his contribution and experience. He mentioned that he made it to the Haryana assembly six times and held cabinet minister portfolios twice and leader of Opposition once.
“I was assured the Fatehabad assembly seat, but assigned Nalwa instead. The people of Nalwa elected me as their representative in the Haryana assembly,” he said, while highlighting that the party lost Fatehabad.
He further wrote that despite his contribution and experience, he was denied a cabinet berth or any organisational role. I later learned that this was because I had met Kumari Selja after the elections, and her ministry (as then Union minister) had approved a ₹18 crore grant for my constituency,” he said. He said the history repeated in the 2019 assembly elections, when he was again denied a ticket, and both Nalwa and Fatehabad were won by the BJP.
“In 2024, I was appointed coordinator for the Lok Sabha elections in Sirsa constituency, where Kumari Selja was contesting as the Congress candidate. Due to my sincere efforts for her victory, the party’s state leadership felt insecure. In the same year, I attended Kumari Selja’s rally in Narnaund, which angered the state leadership. Later that year, I was again denied a party ticket, and the Congress lost Nalwa once again,” he said.
Sampat Singh was once considered close to former deputy prime minister Devi Lal and his son OP Chautal. He had quit the INLD and joined the Congress in July 2009 after serving with the Chautala clan for 32 years. When he shifted to the Congress, he had a good equation with Bhupinder Singh Hooda but their relations were not on the same page after 2019 when he joined the BJP after the Congress denied him a ticket from the Nalwa assembly constituency. Ahead of the general elections last year, the veteran leader had quit the BJP and joined the Congress. The Congress this time too denied him ticket from the same assembly segment and reposed faith on new face — Anil Maan — who lost to BJP’s Randhir Panihar.
On September 25, the veteran leader had attended INLD’s rally in Rohtak to mark the birth anniversary of former deputy prime minister Devi Lal. Singh had taken a veiled dig at Hooda’s appointment as the CLP leader, asking “if the party wanted to appoint the same person, what was the need to wait for one year”. The Congress central leadership named Hooda as the CLP leader in Haryana on September 29, almost a year after the assembly polls in which the BJP returned to power a third consecutive term.
The former Haryana minister claimed that “no accountability has been fixed for the party’s continuous decline” in the state over the last 15 years. Singh’s resignation letter gave a detailed account of leaders who left the party, including late Bhajan Lal, Rao Inderjit Singh, Kuldeep Bishnoi, Dharambir Singh and Arvind Sharma.
