To curb the problem of factionism in its Haryana unit ahead of assembly polls, the Congress high command has shown faith in its veteran and experienced face Ashok Gehlot, the former CM of Rajasthan who has shown his political acumen time and again. However, the contrast in the story is that he will accompany by party's treasurer, Ajay Maken. Both the leaders had some bitter experiences with each other when the Grand Old Party was ruling in Rajasthan under the leadership of Ashok Gehlot.
Ashok Gehlot and Ajay Maken along with Pratap Singh Bajwa have been given the responsibility of Senior Observer in Haryana elections. Congress Organization General Secretary KC Venugopal has issued orders for the appointment of the three leaders.
Gehlot who was on long bed rest of three months due to some back problems, is again in the field as Congress has given two responsibilities to Gehlot in the last two days. He was made the star campaigner as well for the Haryana elections along with former Deputy CM Sachin Pilot and Congress State President Govind Singh Dotasara.
Gehlot had turned the tide for the party in the Gujarat election of 2017 and gave a tough fight to the BJP. Now the party is hoping for the same magic from the Jadugar as Haryana is a neighbouring state of Rajasthan and Gehlot holds a good tuning with all the three major factions, namely former Haryana CM Bhupendra Hooda, Kumari Selja and Randeep Surejwala. When Hooda became CM for the first time, Gehlot was an observer along with three leaders, while Surjewala was sent to Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan during Gehlot's tenure.
However, some shortcomings are also there as the nominations are over and a very short time has left for the election while much bigger problem is the not very cordial relationship between Gehlot and Ajay Maken.
Ajay Maken's bitterness with Gehlot surfaced when he was in-charge of Rajasthan. Maken was allegedly told to be close to Gehlot's political rival Sachin Pilot.
A historical incident of party's in fight took place on September 25th 2022 when the party high command called party legislature meeting at CM's residence to pass the resolution of authorizing the party high command to choose the leader. Maken as the party incharge and Mallikarjun Kherge as the observer, waited a long for the meeting, but it couldn't take place as the MLAs of Gehlot faction boycotting the official meeting, convened a parallel meeting and handed over their resignations to the Speaker in favor of Ashok Gehlot.
As per reports Maken made a strong report against this indiscipline of the party MLAs and three Gehlot loyalists Shanti Dhariwal, Mahesh Joshi and Dharmendra Rathore were served with show cause notices. However, no action was taken against these three leaders and annoyed with this Maken distanced himself from Rajasthan. Later on, he stepped down from the post and replaced with Sukhjindar Singh Randhawa.
Now, it will be interesting to see how the leaders join hands to score a success for the party in the elections. The sources in the party said that Gehlot tends to dominate and hardly leaves anything for other leaders, so it will be interesting to see that how the two leaders already having distance will unite the party in Haryana.
