After Punjab, now its Haryana where the crisis is brewingin the Congress party as supporters of former Haryana chief minister BhupinderSingh Hooda have stepped up pressure to remove Kumari Selja as state presidentand appoint Hooda in her place.
About 21 Congress MLAs reached the residence of Hooda inNew Delhi on Monday to devise a strategy of their move. The MLAs are expected tomeet K.C. Venugopal, general secretary, organization, to press for theirdemand.
Sources say the former chief minister wants a free hand inthe state affairs and is also upset with the growing clout of party spokespersonRandeep Singh Surjewala.
Selja had also met Venugopal last week.
Earlier on July 1, about 19 Congress MLAs from Haryanahad met the state in charge, Vivek Bansal, to resolve organizational issuesincluding appointments of Block and District committees and preparations forthe local body elections.
After the meeting, Vivek Bansal, state in charge of theparty, said, "there is no serious issue but due to pandemic we had not metin recent times, so we decided to have a meeting and listen to MLAs about the political situation in the state."
Bansal added that the party is in the process of appointingnew district committees in the state to strengthen the organization ahead oflocal body polls.
Due to turf war between former chief minister BhupinderSingh Hooda and ex-Congress state chief Ashok Tanwar (not with Congress now)had resulted in non-formation of the committees but after Tanwar's exit andKumari Selja taking over as president on the eve of state elections, the statusquo remained despite two years have passed since the new government has beenformed with Congress as the main opposition party in the state.
The state is mired in factionalism as there are threeprominent groups -- one of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, anotherof Congress general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala and also of the statepresident Kumari Selja.