M A I N   N E W S

Bhajan Lal resigns as HPCC chief
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 1
Haryana Congress stalwart Bhajan Lal has resigned from the post of PCC President to protest against the party high command ignoring his nominees while drawing up the list of members for the PCC executive.

“I write this letter to you with a very heavy heart”, Mr Bhajan Lal said in his resignation letter addressed to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. “It is very important to bring to your knowledge that the recent PCC list has broken all bounds of patience in the hearts and minds of the real Congress workers”, he wrote.

“Keeping in mind the unacceptable treatment meted out to the Congress workers by the Congress party and the state government, I resign from my post of President of the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee as I cannot see the humiliation of the ‘Aam Admi’ — the grassroot Congress workers who are my family and for whom I can sacrifice my life”, Mr Bhajan Lal wrote.

He also said that the developments in Haryana during the past 15 months were very painful and agonising for the people who had voted for the Congress party in the Assembly elections. “The state of affairs in Haryana are in a pathetic condition due to the non-fulfilment of promises made to the people by the Congress party”.

Talking to reporters at his Panchkula residence here, the Haryana Congress leader, however, refused to come clean on the issue of his resignation. “ This is a secret matter and an internal matter of the party”, the three-time former Chief Minister said as TV and print journalists pestered him for a statement.

He said he was a veteran Congress member and also the chief of the state unit of the party. It would not be fitting for a person of his stature to talk to the Press about inner-party matters, he said. The Congress leader, however, did say that he was not happy with the new PCC executive constituted for Haryana. “The list is unfair”, he said categorically.

Mr Bhajan Lal, who was President of the HPCC when the Congress party won nine out of 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state and subsequently won the last Assembly elections in Haryana with a thumping majority, has been sulking ever since the Congress high command decided to install Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda as Chief Minister of Haryana.

Attempts were made to patch up with him by inducting his elder son, Mr Chander Mohan, as Deputy Chief Minister. However, the sop failed to placate the Congress leader as his younger son, Mr Kuldeep Bishnoi, Lok Sabha member from Bhiwani, launched a strident attack against the Hooda-led regime.

The Congress high command also hurt Mr Bhajan Lal’s sentiments when it chose Mr Ram Prakash, a staunch Hooda-loyalist, as Acting President of the HPCC. Mr Bhajan Lal did not attend the function in which Mr Ram Prakash was formally installed in the party post.

Mr Kuldeep Bishnoi, who was earlier given a show-cause notice by the party for his repeated statements against the Hooda-regime, was also left out from the PCC executive.

In Delhi, Mr Janardhan Dwivedi, AICC General Secretary, who is incharge of the Haryana PCC unit, claimed that Ms Sonia Gandhi was yet to receive Mr Bhajan Lal’s resignation letter. He said an appropriate decision would be taken as and when she would receive the letter. It is learnt that the party has taken a serious view of Mr Bhajan Lal’s step which is being seen as an attempt to put pressure on the party’s Central leadership.