As all political opponents in Haryana gear up for the upcoming Assembly elections, Congress party in the state is going through immense turbulence. The internal discord shows up as the ex-party chief of Haryana, Ashok Tanwar has alleged the party of selling tickets to “undeserving” candidates and called his supporters to protest outside the AICC headquarters in Delhi on Wednesday.
Delhi: Former Haryana Congress Chief Ashok Tanwar holds protest outside Cong HQ, says, “For 5yrs I gave my blood&sweat for Congress.Leadership in Haryana has been destroyed.We’ve been dedicated to the Party.Why give tickets to those who’ve recently joined&criticised Cong earlier” pic.twitter.com/DgatGHgcYN
— ANI (@ANI) October 2, 2019
“For 5yrs I gave my blood&sweat for Congress. Leadership in Haryana has been destroyed. We’ve been dedicated to the Party. Why to give tickets to those who’ve recently joined&criticised Cong earlier,” said the ex-party chief while protesting outside Cong HQ.
In a voice message, the Congress leader had said that some people were out to ruin the Congress. “Come to AICC headquarters to save your interests as well as to save the interests of the party,” said Tanwar in the message.
Hundreds of Tanwar’s supporters had created a ruckus outside Sonia Gandhi’s residence on Tuesday alleging discrimination with them in the selection of candidates. Police had to be called as his supporters blocked the road outside Sonia’s residence.
Alleging that those who worked hard for five years to strengthen the Congress were being ignored in the distribution of tickets, Tanwar furthered that CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda was conspiring against him and his camp.
“Those who have worked for the party in the last five years are ignored in ticket distribution. The persons who have worked against the party are considered by former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda,” alleged the miffed leader.
Sources said that the party is even considering giving tickets to turncoats. As many as 10 leaders from different parties have been offered tickets by the Hooda camp to sway Tanwar’s supporters, said a leader.
Meanwhile, a worker belonging to Tanwar’s faction took the name of senior party members like Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Ghulam Nabi Azad, alleging that they were responsible for giving tickets to “undeserving” candidates.
They raised slogans against Azad who is the in-charge of the party’s Haryana affairs.
Ashok Tanwar has been involved in a bitter fight with Hooda after the former was shown the door as state chief by the latter. Such grave is the situation that Bhupinder Singh Hooda had almost threatened to split the party because of his antipathy to Ashok Tanwar.
As per sources, Tanwar had demanded the following seats: Rania, Kalawali, Dabwali, Ferozpur, Badhshpur, Fatehabad, Panipat rural, Sirsa city, Assand, Julana, Rai, Bawal, Ateli, Radour, Narwana, Kalanaur and Narnond, but incidentally was not even given any one of the seats.
The state will be going to polls on October 21, along with Maharashtra, while the counting of votes will be done on October 24 in a single phase. The BJP has already issued names of 78 candidates.
