Hooda, Selja predict big win for Congress, posture on CM post

The Congress on Monday witnessed power games in the capital with Jat stalwart Bhupinder Singh Hooda and party veteran Kumari Selja posturing around the issue of chief ministership ahead of the Assembly poll results tomorrow. Both leaders were in Delhi today and both predicted “majestic win” for the Congress on Tuesday.

Hooda said the Congress would win because people had compared his governance of Haryana with that of the BJP and realised that per capita income, per capita investment which had peaked under the Congress rule had plummeted under the BJP along with other economic indicators.

Ex-CM ahead in race

• Recent Congress strategies on CM issue signal advantage Bhupinder Singh Hooda; Selja’s hopes stem from the fact that Haryana has seen non-MLAs become Congress CMs — Hooda himself in 2005; Bansi Lal in 1985

Declaring that he was “neither tired nor retired”, Hooda, replying to a question on the CM issue, said, “The opinion of MLAs will be taken and finally the decision of the high command will be acceptable to all.”

Kumari Selja on her part reiterated her stated position that the central Congress central leadership would decide on the CM face.

Asked about chief ministership if the Congress wins, Selja said, “Yes, there are aspirations of the community, of women. They feel the time has come. Also the future should always be an improvement on the past. We must learn lessons from the past,” Selja told The Tribune today.

Everyone has aspirations

Everyone has hopes and aspirations, which are in the public domain, be it the issue of a woman and a Dalit. The high command will take a decision (on CM) with their own wisdom considering all issues in the public domain. —Kumari Selja, congress leader

Ambitious apart, if the recent Congress strategy on the issue of chief ministership is any indicator, Hooda is at a clear advantage.

Be it Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka or Telangana, the Congress has, of late chosen regional mass leaders over the seemingly more influential and resourceful ones — Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu over late CM Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh and her son in Himachal; OBC stalwart Siddaramaiah over DK Shivakumar in Karnataka and Revanth Reddy over Uttam Reddy in Telangana.

The Congress strategy on CMs changed after the Punjab fiasco where the party had in September 2021 named Dalit leader Charanjit Channi as CM over then state president Sunil Jakhar who had much greater MLA support. The experiment of giving Punjab its first Dalit CM failed and the Congress badly lost the 2022 state election to AAP.

Accordingly in subsequent state polls, the party changed tack to favour popular mass leaders over others when it came to CM-ship.

In Haryana this time, the Congress trusted Hooda with over 70 of the 90 candidates. This was in sharp contrast to 2019 when Selja was state chief and Hooda was chairman of the poll coordination committee. The Congress could only win 31 MLAs and the BJP with 40 MLAs formed the government with the support of 10 JJP lawmakers.

That said, Sirsa MP Selja’s hopes around CM-ship are not entirely unfounded because she is a party veteran who has held several key organisational and ministerial roles in the Congress. Moreover, non-MLAs have become Congress CMs in Haryana in the past — prime example being Hooda himself who was Lok Sabha MP from Rohtak when he was made Haryana CM in 2005 over Bhajan Lal. Hooda was later elected from Kiloi. Earlier in 1985 Bansi Lal was a non MLA when Congress made him Haryana CM.