Haryana: Congress Legislature Party Authorises Sonia Gandhi To Elect New Leader

The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in Haryana authorised party president Sonia Gandhi to pick its leader after the newly elected MLAs on Friday could not elect a head.

At a meeting of the CLP at the party office here, Congress MLAs proposed two names - former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and former CLP leader Kiran Choudhary - for the post, triggering a tug of war between the two groups, party sources said.

While 25 MLAs backed Hooda, six were in favour of Choudhary, they said.

The meeting was attended by the party's Haryana in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad, senior leader Madhusudan Mistri and state unit president Kumari Selja.

Ahead of the Assembly election in Haryana, the Congress high command had replaced Ashok Tanwar with Selja as the state party chief and Choudhary as CLP leader with Hooda. Tanwar has later quit the party.

In the 90-member Assembly, the strength of BJP is 40, its ally Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) 10, Congress 31, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) one, Haryana Lokhit Party one and seven Independents. The seven Independents too had extended support to the BJP.