Battleground HaryanaCongress presses big guns into electoral arenaThe Congress leadership has swung into action to get its prominent leaders across the country to fight the current Lok Sabha elections. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP firing all cylinders to score a hat-trick at the helm of power, prominent Congress leaders have been shying away from joining the battle against them. This is in spite of the express orders from the party leadership to fight the election. A tussle is being witnessed between the Congress central leadership and its prominent faces on this issue. After failing to force its top two leaders of Rajasthan – Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot – to contest, the leadership has put its foot down in Haryana, a state from where the party is getting positive feedback on its prospects. The Congress central election committee has met twice, but failed to finalise candidates for Haryana. Former state chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and his son Deependra refused to contest from Rohtak, which is considered their pocket borough. They had suggested their wives as possible candidates. But the leadership has rejected their proposal and asked Deependra to fight from Rohtak. According to sources, the party has also finalised the candidature of former state president Kumari Selja from Sirsa and Varun Chaudhary from Ambala. Varun is a sitting MLA and his father, Phool Chand Mulana, was a state Congress president. The party has also reportedly finalised Brijendra Singh’s name for the Hissar Lok Sabha seat in spite of Bhupinder Hooda’s strong opposition. With the state Congress leaders locked in a factional feud over the remaining seats, the central leadership has set up a three-member committee of K C Venugopal, Salman Khursheed and Madhusudan Mistri to bring about a rapprochement. The committee met on Sunday with leaders of different groups and is likely to finalise the names by Monday.



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