Congress faces backlash from 'ignored' contender in Gurgaon LS seat selection

Congress announces Raj Babbar as Gurgaon Lok Sabha candidate, sparking criticism from contender Ajay Singh Yadav. Babbar's nomination completes the party's candidates for the nine seats it contests in Haryana. Yadav alleges a conspiracy to marginalize senior leaders, while most Congress candidates are loyalists of former chief minister Hooda. The BJP had previously accused the Congress of infighting and delaying candidate announcements.

The Congress on Tuesday announced the candidature of senior party leader Raj Babbar from the Gurgaon Lok Sabha seat.

Minutes later, Congress leader Ajay Singh Yadav, a contender for the seat, hit out at the Haryana unit of the party over a ''deep-rooted'' conspiracy ''to crush senior leaders''.

Babbar's name was announced a day after the nomination process began for all the 10 seats in Haryana where polling will be held in the sixth phase on May 25.

From Gurgaon, former Haryana Minister Yadav was also a contender. As Babbar's name was announced by the party, Yadav took to X to express his unhappiness.

''I will abide by the decision of the National leadership. But there is a deep-rooted conspiracy of few congress Haryana state leaders to crush the senior Congress leaders,'' Yadav, who is the party's chairman of the OBC department, said without taking any names.

''I am and will always work for the Congress Party,'' Yadav added.

With Babbar's announcement, the Congress has announced candidates for all the nine seats it is contesting in Haryana.

The Kurukshetra seat is being fought by the Aam Aadmi Party, a constituent of the opposition INDIA bloc.

It was being speculated that the party would field Babbar from Gurgaon where BJP veteran and Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh is seeking re-election.

Yadav's son is Congress' sitting MLA from Rewari. Considered Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda's bete noire, Yadav is not the only leader who has been ignored.

While Kiran Choudhary, a sitting MLA of the Congress, was eyeing a ticket for her daughter Shruti Choudhary from the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat, Birender Singh's son Brijendra Singh was a ticket hopeful from the Hisar seat.

Birender Singh, a former Union minister, and Brijendra Singh, the outgoing Lok Sabha MP from Hisar, had left the BJP recently and joined the Congress.

Most of the nine Congress candidates who have got tickets in Haryana for the May 25 polls are loyalists of former chief minister Hooda.

At a press conference here on Monday, Hooda and state Congress chief Udai Bhan had said that no party leader is upset when asked about reports that senior leader Kiran Choudhary and Birender Singh were unhappy.

Hooda and Bhan had maintained that the final decision to allot tickets is made by the party's high command.

The BJP had earlier targeted the Congress over alleged infighting in its state unit and claimed it had delayed the announcement of candidates.

Last week, the Congress had announced the names of eight of its candidates from Haryana. Former Union minister Kumari Selja has been fielded from Sirsa and Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda from Rohtak.

The party's Haryana youth wing president Divanshu Budhiraja has been fielded from the Karnal seat against former state chief minister and BJP candidate Manohar Lal Khattar.

The ruling BJP named its candidates for six Lok Sabha seats in Haryana on March 13, three days before general elections were announced. It named the remaining four candidates on March 24.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)