Jolt to Congress as senior Haryana leader, daughter quit party, to join BJP

In a jolt to the Congress in Haryana where assembly polls are due in October, senior leader Kiran Choudhry and her daughter Shruti Choudhry quit the party and will join the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday.

Both Kiran Choudhry and Shruti Choudhry resigned from the primary membership of the Congress on Tuesday and, in their separate resignation letters to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, took a veiled dig at former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, alleging that the party's state unit is being run as a "personal fiefdom".

Shruti Choudhry was also the working president of the Haryana unit of the Congress.

Kiran Choudhry, who is a sitting MLA from Tosham in Bhiwani district, told PTI that both she and Shruti Choudhry, a former MP, will be joining the BJP in Delhi on Wednesday.

Kiran Choudhry snapped her four-decade long association with the Congress.

Their joining is likely to come as a big boost to the BJP in Haryana with a few months remaining for the polls.

Kiran Choudhry, daughter-in-law of former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal, is considered as a bete noire of senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

In their resignation letters to Kharge, while Kiran Choudhry, 69, wrote that the Haryana Congress is being run as a "personal fiefdom", Shruti Choudhry, in an apparent reference to Hooda, alleged that the state unit centres around one person who has compromised the interest of the party for his own "selfish" and "petty interests".

"It is most unfortunate that the Congress party in Haryana is being run as the personal fiefdom leaving no space for sincere voices like mine, who have been stifled, humiliated and conspired against in a most well-orchestrated and systematic manner, thus, significantly hampering my diligent efforts to represent our people and uphold the values, I have always stood for," wrote Kiran Choudhry in her letter to Kharge.

Shruti, in her letter, said, "The Congress party in Haryana has, unfortunately, become one-person centric who has compromised the interest of the party for his own selfish and petty interests and it is thus time for me to move on so that I may continue to uphold the interest of my people and the values that I stand for."

Shruti said she comes from a long line of people who have had the privilege to serve the country selflessly and she too had strived to uphold that "great legacy" of "selfless service" with utmost honesty and sincerity.

Kiran Choudhry was learnt to be upset with the denial of ticket to Shruti Choudhry from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls as well as with the overall distribution of tickets by the party in the state.

On June 12, even Congress general secretary and Sirsa MP Kumari Selja had launched a veiled dig at Hooda, saying if proper feedback had been given to the high command and "politics of self" had not been pursued, the party could have won all the Lok Sabha seats from Haryana.

The Congress contested nine of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana while the Kurukshetra seat was unsuccessfully fought by the INDIA bloc constituent Aam Aadmi Party.

The Congress wrested five seats from the BJP.

Barring the Sirsa seat, which was won by another bete noire of Hooda, Kumari Selja, the candidates for eight other seats fought by the Congress were believed to be Hooda loyalists.

From Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, where Shruti has been an MP earlier, the Congress had given the ticket to sitting MLA and Hooda loyalist Rao Dan Singh, who lost to BJP's sitting MP Dharambir Singh.

While speculations are rife that Shruti could be among the BJP probables for the Rajya Sabha seat which is going to fall vacant after the recent win of Congress' Deepender Singh Hooda from the Rohtak Lok Sabha seat, Kiran, however, said both she and her daughter will be joining BJP unconditionally.

Without naming Hooda, Kiran Choudhry said, "They have pushed me into a corner. There is a limit to humiliation one can suffer."

In her resignation letter to Kharge, Kiran Choudhry, who has also remained a minister during the Congress regime headed by Hooda, wrote, "I have been a loyal and steadfast member of the Congress for the last four decades and have, over these years, devoted my life to the party and the people whom I represent.

"In Haryana, I also represent the rich legacy of late Chaudhary Bansi Lal, the architect of modern Haryana and my late husband Chaudhary Surender Singh," she said.

Kiran Choudhry said her aim and objective since the very beginning has been to serve the people of her state and country.

"I am now unable to do the same under such constraints. In order to realise the aspirations of my people and workers, I am compelled to look ahead at a fresh start," Kiran Choudhry wrote in her resignation letter to Kharge.

Both thanked Kharge, the Congress leadership and the party for providing them a platform to have served the people.

In a direct attack on Bhupinder Hooda, Kiran Choudhary told PTI, "For him, only his son (Deepender Hooda) matters. For his selfishness, he wants to finish all leadership and he also spoiled the Congress' prospects on many Lok Sabha seats. Rao Dan Singh, about whom he gave guarantee he would win, lost from his own Vidhan Sabha segment in the Lok Sabha polls."

She said the same guarantee was given for the Gurugram and some other seats.

"He wants only his son should have everything and wants to finish others. How is this going to work? This is how this man has always worked," Kiran Choudhry said.

She alleged that when one comes down to such "petty conspiracies", it becomes difficult to hold on.

"When he (Bhupinder Hooda) was the chief minister, he wouldn't even give us our share for development in our areas. Now, it has come to this that he is bent upon finishing you completely politically," she said.