Days after Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned after writing a scathing letter to Sonia Gandhi, rifts emerged in the party's Haryana unit with Kumari Selja writing to the party high command that Bhupinder Singh Hooda's meeting with Azad confused and disheartened workers. Selja, a member of the party's highest decision-making body, has reportedly lodged a complaint against Hooda from whom a response is sought for meeting the rebel leader.
Hooda, one of the 23 leaders who had demanded a complete overhaul of the party's organizational structure, met Azad on Tuesday at his Delhi house. Anand Sharma and Prithviraj Chavan also met Azad.
Azad had squarely blamed Rahul Gandhi for the party's condition, saying he would take decisions based on the advice of his PA and security officials. He also claimed Gandhi runs the Congress via remote control and that he was childish and immature.
Later, in an interview, Azad, who had been associated with the Congress for 50 years and worked with three generations of the Gandhi family, also claimed that Gandhi didn't meet Jaiveer Shergill for one-and-a-half years. Shergill resigned last month.
Selja has raised the matter with some senior party leaders, including All India Congress Committee Haryana in-charge Vivek Bansal.
When asked for a comment, Selja told PTI over the phone on Thursday, "I have said that Mr Hooda going there and meeting Mr Azad when he has left the party, blamed the leadership and even made personal comments against our leaders, disheartens the party rank and file and also confuses them. He (Azad) has chosen a path and left the party. But once the die is cast, the person has left the party and has already announced floating his own party, what is the point of him (Hooda's) going to his Azad's house," she sought to know.
Selja, an inter-party rival of Hooda, said his meeting with Azad wasn't acceptable especially when he had been given a free hand in running the party in Haryana.
With inputs from PTI
