The Haryana Congress, a divided house in the state, has entirely failed to bring the prevailing feud among the party stalwarts to an end. Despite the repeated efforts of the party high command, the scenario remains unchanged for several years. In this series, the Bhupender Singh Hooda faction conducted a Karyakarta Sammelan in Karnal, the home turf of the BJP stalwart and the state Chief Minister, but the Congress MLA Shamsher Singh Gogi, who is believed to be loyal to Kumari Selja, remained absent from the program.
Reacting to this, Hooda said that due to an urgent piece of work, Shamsher Singh Gogi could not attend the program. In contrast, Gogi said that he was not invited to the program, indicating the prevailing rift among the party leaders. Besides, the much-awaited organizational appointments are still pending after the completion of the tenure of several state presidents and the state in-charge.
The leaders of the opposite group in the party, namely Kumari Selja, Rajdeep Surjewala, and Kiran Chaudhary, who once upon a time have been eyeball to eyeball over a battle of dominance and presently, as the SRK faction, stay united against Hooda to strengthen their position. Thus, the leaders of both sides keep refraining themselves from the opposite faction’s programs being held across the state. As part of the same, Shamsher Singh Gogi is believed not to attend the program held in Karnal. As the parliamentary and assembly polls draw near, the feud between the Hooda and SRK groups is intensifying with not attending meetings and the programs being conducted by the Hooda faction. Both groups had faced hurdles from each other for a long time. In the wake of this, the party continues to come up with a certain set of attempts to strike a balance between the two factions named Hooda and SRK.
Ahead of the polls, all factions are attempting to foil each other’s plans to garner the ticket for their loyalists, and all the party stalwarts are leaving no stone unturned to showcase their strength. While the majority of MLAs are on his side, he is sending a strong message to the central party leadership. Amid the battle of dominance between the both factions, despite the efforts of previous party in-charges, the internal conflicts persist, adding to the challenges faced by the party high command, and Deepak Babriya, the state party in charge, is facing the daunting task of addressing and resolving these longstanding divisions after the party leaders Shakeel Ahmed, Prithviraj Chavan, Kamal Nath, and Ghulam Nabi Azad, who were in charge of Haryana Congress.
Over the past four years, the Congress party in Haryana has witnessed a series of appointments for the role of state in-charge.
However, the internal feuds within the party stalwarts have persisted despite these changes. Ghulam Nabi Azad served as the Haryana in-charge in January 2019, followed by Vivek Bansal in September 2024, and Shakti Singh Gohil in December 2022. Prior to them, Shakeel Ahmed and Kamal Nath also held the position in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The defeat of Congress-backed candidate RK Anand in the 2016 Rajya Sabha polls due to cross-voting resulted in the removal of Shakil Ahmad from the post of state party in-charge. Despite receiving support from Congress, RK Anand was unable to secure a successful candidacy. Similarly, Vivek Bansal’s tenure as in-charge in Haryana was marred by controversy and internal conflicts within Haryana Congress.