Turncoats to discipline faction-ridden Haryana Congress?

New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday appointed a five-member committee to ensure discipline and accountability in its Haryana unit.

This was done about a month after the Congress leadership appointed Rao Narender Singh its new state unit chief and Bhupinder Singh Hooda as the legislature party leader in the state assembly.

While veteran leader Dharampal Singh Malik will head the panel, Akram Khan, Kailasho Saini, Anil Dhantori and Rohit Jain are its members.

The disciplinary committee is mainly composed of those who had joined from other parties or those who had earlier quit the Congress, joined some other party and then returned.

Take for example Jagadhri legislator Akram Khan. He had started his political career with the Congress, then joined the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and was once considered a close lieutenant of former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala. He quit the INLD to join the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2007 and finally returned to the Congress in 2019.

He is now considered close to senior Congress leader Kumari Selja.

Similarly, former legislator Anil Dhantori had resigned from the Congress in 2022 and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He rejoined the Congress before the 2024 assembly elections in Haryana, and is now said to be a part of the campaign that ones its allegiance to senior leader Randeep Singh Surjewala.

Former Member of Parliament (MP) from Kurukshetra Kailasho Saini had also served in other parties before joining the Congress. She became a Lok Sabha member as an INLD candidate in 1998 and 1999. Saini then joined the Congress during the Hooda regime, later quit it and joined the BJP in September 2019. However she returned to the Congress fold in May 2024, a few months before the assembly elections. She belongs to the Hooda camp in the Haryana Congress.

The only Congress loyalist in the disciplinary panel is advocate Rohit Jain.

While Malik is considered close to Hooda, Jain belongs to the Selja camp.

Malik, who had helmed the Haryana Congress from 1992 to 1997, was once considered very close to former chief minister Bhajan Lal and his son Kuldeep Bishnoi, and was one of the key leaders of their Haryana Janhit Congress. He later rejoined the Congress and switched his loyalties to Hooda.

It will be interesting to see how these turncoats are going to enforce discipline in the faction-ridden Haryana Congress.