Chandigarh: In major setback to the Congress in Haryana, senior leader and former Cabinet minister Sampat Singh has quit the party, blaming the state leadership for, what he alleged, sidelining several senior leaders and honest workers of the party.
A six-time MLA, Singh in his resignation letter, sent to party president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday also raised questions over the state leadership and launched a veiled attack on former two-time chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Without naming Hooda, he said that capable candidates were ignored and those with money power were fielded as ``loyalists’’ as candidates to ensure the party's defeat.
Singh who had joined Congress in 2009 after ending his 32-year old association with Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), said that he was denied tickets in 2019 and 2024. He further held that he had returned to Congress after a brief stint with BJP but was always sidelined.
Alleging that the state Congress had become a ``family fiefdom’’, he said several senior leaders left Congress because of the same and mentioned the names of former chief minister Bhajan Lal, Birender Singh, Rao Inderjit Singh, Kuldeep Bishnoi, Arvind Sharma, Kiran Chaudhry, Shruti Chaudhry, Navin Jindal, Savitri Jindal. He also accused the state leadership of sidelining tallest Dalit leader Kumari Selja, a six-time MP, which caused a major dent to the Dalit vote-bank of the party.
Without naming Hooda’s son Deepender Hooda, who had lost the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Singh referred to the latter’s nomination for Rajya Sabha in 2020, instead of a deserving Dalit or Backward Class candidate.
Stating that even though after party’s defeat in 2024, party leader Rahul Gandhi himself said that the state leadership had prioritised personal interests over the party, the same leadership was retained, Singh held that he had lost his faith in the party’s ability to represent the interests of people of Haryana.
