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Politics of ‘me & mine’ should end: Kumari Selja on Congress ticket allocation
Selja, who was in Karnal’s Jat Bhawan and later at Ambala’s Palace Haveli to address press conferences and meet party workers, said that had the party high command been given credible feedback and had there been no discrepancies in ticket allocation, the party could have swept all 10 seats.
Congress general secretary and Sirsa MP Kumari Selja on Wednesday said that if ticket allocation in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections was better, the grand old party could have performed well on all 10 seats of Haryana.
Selja, who was in Karnal’s Jat Bhawan and later at Ambala’s Palace Haveli to address press conferences and meet party workers, said that had the party high command been given credible feedback and had there been no discrepancies in ticket allocation, the party could have swept all 10 seats.
Giving the example of Karnal seat, where Haryana Congress state president Divyanshu Budhiraja contested against former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, she said that the high command was misled at some level and the candidate was not announced in a timely manner.
She cited how the son of ex-CM Bhajan Lal and former MLA Chander Mohan was completely ignored during ticket distribution even though he could have proved to be good candidate for the Hisar seat.
“People were demanding my candidature from Sirsa and his (Chander’s) from Hisar. Though he wasn’t an applicant, he could have won lakhs of votes if given a chance. We led the Jan Sandesh yatra across the state to spread the message of our leader Rahul Gandhi and understand the mood. Look at Bhiwani, if Shruti (Chaudhary) was the candidate, we could have easily won,” she said.
When asked about the party’s performance and unity in the upcoming assembly elections, she said that the leaders should stop promoting just their family members and instead work for the party cadre.
“We will give real feedback from the ground. The politics of me and mine should end. In a small state like Haryana, you bring candidates from outside, do we don’t have enough?” she added.
The Congress leader further said, “Three months are left for the assembly polls and we should make sure we retain the positive public sentiment that was saw during the Lok Sabha elections. We should also look at the expectations of the voters and work to fulfill those.”
She also trained guns at the party’s state in-charge Deepak Babaria on ticket allocation, accused him of failing in his duty.
“The duty of an in-charge is to take everyone along and to work as a bridge. In every organisation, people fight for their own space. This is part of politics. But it depends on those who are in-charge, if they become a bridge or become a party,” Selja told the HT.
Selja also congratulated Karnal MP Khattar for being chosen in the union cabinet as well as other MPs from Haryana, Rao Inderjit (Gurugram) and Krishan Pal (Faridabad) and said that she is hopeful that Haryana will benefit from them.
