Is Congress preparing for a change in Haryana too? Hooda suddenly called a meeting of MLAs at his residence

Haryana Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda has called a CLP meeting in Chandigarh on Wednesday amid the ongoing turmoil in the Punjab Congress. Party insiders told The Indian Express that Hooda in a clear message to the party high command CLP meeting has been called to show strength. From this meeting, he wants to tell the top leadership that most of the party MLAs in Haryana are in his favor.

The Congress currently has 31 MLAs in the 90-member Haryana Assembly. At the same time, 40 MLAs of BJP and 10 MLAs of JJP are running the government together. Apart from this, there are seven MLAs of the Haryana Lokhit Party and one Independent. Hooda is also the Leader of the Opposition in the Haryana Legislative Assembly. An MLA had recently resigned in the name of the farmers' movement.

Agricultural law on the agenda

As per the formal agenda, the Congress will primarily discuss issues of public importance, including rising prices of essential commodities, deteriorating law, and order and fuel prices, besides the ongoing farmers' agitation against three central agricultural laws. Certainly, the current political scenario will also be discussed in this meeting, a Congress MLA told The Indian Express.

The meeting will be held at Hooda's house

The CLP meeting will be held at Hooda's Sector 7 residence. He is scheduled to stay in Chandigarh for three days. The MLAs have been called for this meeting, but they have not been given any specific agenda.

Another Congress MLA told The Indian Express that the CLP meeting was called even before the change of leadership took place in Punjab. This is a general meeting that the CLP leader calls once to interact with all the MLAs and discuss various ongoing issues and the party's strategies. He said that there is no political agenda behind it.

Hooda revolted in the 2019 elections

Ahead of the 2019 assembly elections, Hooda had also started a rebellion against his party when he was not declared the CM candidate by the party high command. Addressing a large rally in Rohtak, Hooda had declared himself as the chief ministerial candidate with or without his party. He had attacked the Congress stand on abrogation of Article 370. At that rally, Hooda had also announced a 25-member committee comprising 12 of the then 17 Congress MLAs and 13 other leaders to consider his next course of action.

However, his equations with the party high command improved significantly later. In the 2019 assembly elections, Congress got only nine seats less than the BJP. Recently, Hooda's son Deepender Hooda, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP, has been nominated by the AICC as one of the members of the party's screening committee for the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Jitendra Singh and Varsha Gaikwad are the other two members of the AICC Screening Committee. Priyanka Gandhi, Ajay Kumar Lallu, Aradhana Mishra Mona, and all AICC secretaries of Uttar Pradesh have been nominated as ex-officio members of the screening committee.