Congress leader Kumari Selja.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: The Congress announced candidates for eight Lok Sabha seats in Haryana on Thursday, with the party refusing to give a ticket to BJP turncoat and sitting Hisar MP Brijendra Singh citing adverse ground reports.
In a list that bears the imprint of Haryana strongman Bhupinder Hooda, the Congress has postponed the decision on choosing a candidate for Gurgaon to a later date, as the leadership considers fielding either Raj Babbar or Captain Ajay Yadav, with the latter said to have the edge.
Kumari Selja, a known Hooda detractor, will be contesting from Sirsa (reserved for SCs), while Hooda’s son and Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda will be contesting from Rohtak. With this, Congress has so far announced 317 candidates.
Sources indicated that Hooda has succeeded in influencing ticket decisions, including in Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, where the leadership selected his camp member Rao Dan Singh over senior leader Kiran Chaudhary, who had been advocating for her daughter Shruti.
There were also suggestions that Chaudhary herself should contest from the seat, but Hooda was insistent that Singh be the candidate.
Sitting MLA Varun Choudhary will contest from Ambala (SC), while Jai Prakash will contest from Hisar, a seat that Brijendra Singh had been eyeing.
Brijendra and his father Bijender Singh, who left Congress following a factional dispute with Hooda to join the BJP in 2014, recently returned to the Congress.
Reports from the ground were reportedly unfavourable for Brijendra, leading the party to choose Jai Prakash instead. Sources noted that there are only two Jats in the list: Jai Prakash and Deepender.
Congress is also nominating Divyanshu Budhiraja for Karnal, Satpal Brahmachari for Sonipat, and Mahendra Pratap Singh for Faridabad.
The Congress had allocated Kurukshetra to AAP, where Sushil Gupta is contesting.
The selection of candidates had faced difficulties earlier, with the party's Central Election Committee unable to finalise names due to objections from state leaders. In response, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge established a committee of senior leaders to address contentious issues related to candidate selection.