Chandigarh: The Haryana Congress legislature party (CLP) which held its first meeting after its drubbing in the recent assembly election, here on Friday, passed a resolution authorising the party high command to appoint its next CLP leader in the state assembly.
The meeting was attended by outgoing CLP leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda and state Congress president Udai Bhan, besides the party MLAs, went till late evening. The meeting was also attended by senior party leaders, namely, former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, AICC treasurer Ajay Maken, Punjab CLP leader Partap Singh Bajwa and T S Singh Deo, as Central observers.
Maken told newspersons after the meeting that they had spoken with all the party MLAs, one to one, and sought their opinion on who should be their new leader, and that the MLAs had also authorised the party high command to appoint the state CLP leader.
Maken said that at the beginning of the meeting, Hooda read out a resolution that the CLP unanimously decided that the right to choose its leader is of the AICC president. The resolution was seconded by Udai Bhan and unanimously backed by all the MLAs present on the occasion.
It may be recalled that all the 31 party MLAs had also met Hooda in Delhi on Wednesday and extended their support to him, though there were reports that a few of them sought to oust him and were in favour of a leader from younger generation to take over the party leadership.
It may be recalled that Congress had faced a shocking defeat with winning 37 seats in the recent assembly election and the ruling BJP returned to power for a third consecutive term with its best showing winning 48 seats in the 90-member House. While regional party Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) had won two seats, the remaining three seats were won by independent candidates who had, however, supported the saffron party later.
