Cong factionalism to fore on Rahul’s b’day

Sunit Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, June 19

Factionalism in the Congress surfaced yet again on Tuesday as supporters of state unit chief Ashok Tanwar and former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda held parallel programmes to celebrate the birthday of party president Rahul Gandhi.

Leaders of both factions clashed over hoardings bearing images of their respective leaders put up at the District Congress Bhawan. Workers owing allegiance to Hooda and Tanwar removed flex boards of the rival faction to put up theirs.

“A hoarding regarding Hooda’s ‘Jan Kranti Yatra’ was on display at the Congress Bhawan for the past several days. We planned to replace it with Rahul’s hoarding on his birthday. However, before we could do it, some party members removed the ‘Jan Kranti Yatra’ hoarding and put up another bearing the images of Rahul and Tanwar,” said Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary BB Batra.

Later, Tanwar’s hoarding was removed and another put up, bearing the images of Hooda, his son and party MP Deepender Hooda and Batra. This triggered clashes between supporters of Hooda and Tanwar. Tanwar’s supporters reportedly uploaded some aggressive videos on social media, decrying the move.

State Congress general secretary Hariom Kaushik maintained that the hoarding put up by them had images of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, BR Ambedkar and other national leaders, removing which amounted to their disrespect. He said he would take up the matter before the party high command.

On the other hand, Batra stated that they had no objection to putting up a hoarding bearing Tanwar’s image, but it should also have images of local MP Deepender and two-time Chief Minister Hooda.

Asked whether it would send out the message of factionalism and infighting in the Congress, Batra conceded that it would, but maintained that the state Congress president should have shown some tolerance and tendency to take all Congress leaders along.