A wall of tense silence from senior, and often warring, functionaries of Haryana Congress hit the first AICC meeting convened on Wednesday with state leaders, more than four months after the party suffered a shock defeat in the assembly elections, said people familiar with the matter.
Sensing the tense mood, AICC in-charge BK Hariprasad, who convened the meeting, is learnt to have told the gathering that he would hold one-on-one meetings with them and dispersed the short meeting, according to some participants.
While the contentious issue of appointing new PCC and CLP leaders looming large, Hariprasad is learnt to have tried to pick up threads by tactically avoiding direct reference to the two issues in his opening remarks but stated the “steering committee meeting” was convened to discuss how the state unit would implement the Belagavi CWC decision to launch the ‘save Constitution’ agitation and take follow-up of recent decisions of AICC and some organisational matters. Later, he stated the same before media.
Former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda and AICC general secretary Kumari Selja, the leaders leading rival factions, attended the meeting but didn’t make intervention. AICC general secretary Randeep Surjewala too remained silent. In his brief remark, PCC chief Udai Bhan said the issue of appointing CLP leader in the assembly – pending before party chief Mallikarjun Kharge – should be done without further delay and attributed defeat to ‘factionalism, EVM tampering and organisational weakness’.
