Congress general secretary Kumari Selja said on Wednesday that there “is no talk in the party” of having four Deputy Chief Ministers in Haryana and asserted that the high command should select Haryana’s Chief Minister from among the 36 communities in the state as the post is not reserved for anyone. The Congress leader brushed aside suggestions made by former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda that the Congress would appoint four Deputy Chief Ministers in Haryana.
This has brought the differences within the party out in the open in Haryana, where the Congress has failed to install an organisational set-up for almost four years now, ever since it lost the 2019 Assembly polls in the state due to internal rumblings. “These are political decisions which are taken by the party’s high command. There was never any such talk of having four deputy chief ministers as claimed by Hooda. There was nothing of the kind, as I was the PCC president at the time,” she said.
Selja, who is the Congress general secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh, said there is a culture of 36 communities in Haryana and the party high command should honour that by appointing anyone from these communities to the chief minister’s post. “The Chief Minister’s post is not reserved for anyone and should be decided from among the 36 communities,” she said. Selja said Hooda’s suggestions of four deputy chief ministers might have been at his own personal level.
Hooda suggested on Tuesday that the Congress could have four deputy Chief Ministers, each representing the Bramin, Dalit, Jat and backward communities, in Haryana. He also claimed that this was the talk within the party even during the 2019 Assembly polls, which the Congress lost. “As part of the Congress and being the PCC president in 2019, I can assure you that there was never any such talk of having four deputy chief ministers even in 2019. There is no basis for saying this as the party has never taken any such decision now or then,” Selja asserted. “In Haryana, we believe in 36 communities and the Congress party believes in taking everyone along and should choose a chief minister from any of the 36 communities. I do not think that the party high command has given any right to any individual to announce anything like this,” she said.