About two-and-a-half years ago, Kumari Selja was removed as the Congress’s Haryana chief and replaced by Uday Bhan Chaudhary, a close aide of its presumptive chief ministerial face, Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
The party was clearly throwing its weight behind Hooda ahead of the assembly elections, aiming for a Jat consolidation. In 2019, the Congress, under Hooda, fought for 31 seats but the former chief minister complained that he was given charge of the campaign only a month before the elections then or he would have won the state.
This time, the party chose to put all its eggs in the ‘Hooda basket’ and that too well in advance.
Selja, meanwhile, won from the Sirsa Lok Sabha seat this year as a result of her appeal, and largely without push from the Hooda camp. However, she had the last laugh on Tuesday as Congress, under Hooda, lost an election that everyone thought it would win.
“The party must fix accountability for this loss. There was no balance in the party. The entire cadre is distraught… we were speaking about 60+ seats but we have got far less… the party needs to start afresh with a new thought,” Selja said on Tuesday, training her guns at Hooda who would find it tough to have another shot at the chief minister’s chair after losing thrice as the conjectural CM face.
Selja had recently said the two had hardly spoken since she was removed as the state chief. Going into this election, Selja’s choice for candidates did not get adequate attention from the high command. She was largely absent from the campaign and her request to contest herself was also turned down.
The Dalit and woman face of the party was clearly sulking and waiting for a chance to show her worth.
She made most of the opportunity on Tuesday as Congress collapsed to yet another loss in Haryana under Hooda. Selja went on an interview spree on TV channels, showcasing her disappointment with the Hooda camp over the loss.
Selja’s camp says Congress depended too much on the Jat vote while the decisive factor in Haryana elections has always been the 22 per cent Dalit vote which went to the BJP in a large proportion this time.
BJP made ‘Selja’s humiliation’ by the Congress a major poll plank, saying the party did not respect Dalits.
With knives out in the Congress, the big question now is if Selja has firmly pushed Hooda into the sunset now and wishes the high command to project her as the younger face of the party — a Dalit and a woman to top it with.
The 62-year-old Selja is close to the Gandhis, and much younger to Hooda who turned 77 last month. Hooda had earlier said this is his last election.
Overall, the Congress has now learnt the lesson the hard way that just Jats cannot win it elections in Haryana, and it needs Dalit votes to counter the OBC consolidation behind the BJP in the state. The answer to that may lie in propping up Kumari Selja and retiring Hooda — a job that Selja may have done with this loss.
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