Kumari Selja to launch padayatra in Haryana’s urban areas
Kumari Selja, a former Union minister and All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary, said that analysis of the Lok Sabha election results shows that the ruling BJP in Haryana gained an edge over the Congress in at least 44 assembly segments, most of which are urban. She said there is a need to strengthen the Congress in urban areas
Former Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president and Sirsa Lok Sabha MP Kumari Selja Sunday announced to embark on a padyatra from the last week of this month to connect with urban voters ahead of the assembly elections slated for October.
Selja, a former Union minister and All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary, said that analysis of the Lok Sabha election results shows that the ruling BJP in Haryana gained an edge over the Congress in at least 44 assembly segments, most of which are urban.
“With the Haryana assembly elections approaching, Congress needs to focus on urban assembly areas under a new strategy,” she said in a statement, underlining that the main objective of the padayatra is to strengthen the Congress in urban areas and gain a decisive advantage over the BJP.
“Planning of the padyatra is underway. The route of the yatra and its start date will be announced soon.”
According to Selja, a workers’ meeting will be called soon and through this yatra, the message of the Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi will be taken to every urban voter.
She said people will be informed in detail about the misrule of BJP in the past 10 years. Selja said the Congress is not as weak in urban areas as BJP tries to show. She said Congress still has a strong workforce in urban areas.
“Once the morale of urban workers is boosted, nothing can stop the Congress from coming to power in Haryana,” she said, adding that every third family is trapped in the vortex of property ID and every second family is entangled in the Parivar Pehchan Patra mess while shopkeepers and traders are terrified of extortion incidents.
“Through the padayatra, people will be made aware of the anti-people decisions taken during BJP’s 10-year rule,” she said.
Divided House
The Congress, which is the principal Opposition party in Haryana, is a divided house. A section of the frontline leaders of the Congress in the state are hostile towards each other. Even after winning five Lok Sabha seats of the total 10 in Haryana, the party leaders are pulling in different directions. At the core of this renewed tussle is as to who will be the chief minister if Congress comes back to power in the state.
It was the result of this factional feud that senior Congress leader Kiran Choudhry (a sitting MLA) along with her daughter Shruti Chaudhry, a former Bhiwani-Mahendergarh MP, joined the BJP after the Lok Sabha results were announced. In her resignation letter, Choudhry had indirectly hit out at former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, saying that the Congress party in Haryana is being run as the “personal fiefdom leaving no space for sincere voices like mine, who have been stifled.”
After the results were out, Selja had also trained guns at Congress’ state in-charge Deepak Babria over the issue of allotment of tickets in parliamentary polls. She had said that the Congress Haryana in-charge did not give proper feedback to the party high command regarding Lok Sabha tickets allotment.
In January also, Selja had launched the ‘Congress Sandesh Yatra’ from Hisar, ignoring party’s state in-charge Deepak Babaria’s directive not to run any other campaign in the state without prior approval.
On the other hand, Haryana state party chief Udai Bhan and leader of opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda had started the ‘Ghar-Ghar Congress, Har Ghar Congress’ campaign.
Then accompanying Selja during the ‘Congress Sandesh Yatra’ were Randeep Surjewala and Kiran Choudhry.
Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan had termed the yatra as a programme of the three leaders- Selja, Randeep and Kiran- who are later referred to as the ‘SRK’ group.