Organisational SET-UP: an uphill task for Congress high command in Haryana

Despite the repeated and continuous efforts, the Congress high command failed to come up with much-awaited organisational appointments in Haryana for last nine year which resulted in loss in polls to the party several times. Due to the prevailing feud among the party bigwigs, the efforts of the party high command went in vain. Even the opposite faction used to mock the party stating how a party like Congress, a divided house in the state, can claim a huge victory with a loose base.

Fearing the third consecutive debacle in the forthcoming polls, the party high command in toes to ensure the delayed organisation set up this time in Haryana ahead of polls at any cost and in this row, the a meeting has been scheduled at the party headquarter on January 14 in presence of the state leadership including all group in Haryana Congress and in view of the ongoing feud among the arch rivals in the party, appointing the district and block presidents seems an uphill battle for the supreme authority. However, tall claims of coming up with an organisational set up till 31 January by the state party president Udaybhan proved futile which has become a common thing in state Congress in the last nine years.

During the span of the last nine years, Haryana Congress saw a series of the state in charge including the present state incharge Deepak Babria but no one could succeed in resolving the ongoing feud among its leaders and come up with organisational set up.

Despite the efforts of previous party-in- charges, the scenario continues to remain unchanged in terms of appointments due to the internal conflicts that persist, adding to the challenges. With the daunting task of addressing and resolving these longstanding divisions among the party leaders Shakeel Ahmed, Prithviraj Chavan, Kamal Nath and Ghulam Nabi Azad, who were in-charge of Haryana Congress could not move further in the aforementioned direction. Over the last few years, the Congress party in Haryana has witnessed a series of appointments for the role of state in-charge. Ghulam Nabi Azad served as the Haryana in-charge in January 2019, followed by Vivek Bansal in September 2024, and Shakti Singh Gohil in December 2022. The current in- charge is Deepak Babaria.

Prior to them, Shakeel Ahmed and Kamal Nath also held the position in 2015 and 2016 respectively. The defeat of Congress-backed candidate RK Anand in the 2016 Rajya Sabha polls due to the infighting in the party. With an aim to garner the berth for their loyalists in the much awaited organizational set up, the leaders from both factions are on toes and the same also exists as an obstacle in organizational appointment.

The party is divided into two factions namely Bhupender Singh Hooda and the SRK faction including Kumari Selja, Randeep Surjewala and Kiran Chaudhary over the battle of dominance and survival in the party. Hooda and faction possesses the unilateral hold in the party while the opposite SRK factor does not seem in a strong position as compared to Hooda and aides As the Parliamentary and assembly polls draw near, the feud among the Hooda and SRK group is intensifying with not attending meetings and the program being conducted by the Hooda faction. Both groups had faced hurdles from each other for a long time. In wake of this, the party continues to come up with a certain set of attempts to strike a balance between the two factions.