Chandigarh: At a time when the Congress’s campaign for the October 5 assembly polls in Haryana gather momentum, the absence of its prominent Dalit face and Sirsa MP Kumari Selja has exposed the internal rift in the party.
The issue snowballed on Saturday (September 21) after the BJP’s senior functionaries invited Selja to join their party and accused the Congress of ‘disrespecting’ her and harbouring anti-Dalit sentiment.
Dismissing the charges, the Congress high command asked the BJP to focus on its own house and admired Selja as one of the party’s senior leaders and a loyal party worker.
But what the Congress cannot possibly deny is the undesirable discontent in the party at this crucial juncture, especially with its prominent Dalit leadership, which is otherwise key for expanding its social base and crucial for it to win a majority government.
Selja, also a general secretary of the Congress, was active and campaigning for the party until the its ticket announcement ten days ago, which did not go down well with her and her supporters.
With the party leaning towards former chief minister and prominent Jat face Bhupinder Hooda in its all major decisions, whether on alliance talks with the Aam Aadmi Party or ticket selection, Selja and her camp ostensibly felt sidelined.
The party did not field her despite her keen interest in contesting the upcoming polls, which could otherwise have kept the leadership question open.
Then, as per several media reports, the party accommodated not more than nine or ten of her supporters in its list of 89 candidates against her demand for 30 seats. On the contrary, Hooda’s camp secured the lion’s share of 72 seats, creating further discontent in the Selja camp.
This was followed by Congress workers making casteist remarks against Selja, although senior party leaders condemned the remarks.
The first visible sign of her absence surfaced when she did not attend Wednesday’s launch of the party’s Haryana manifesto by president Mallikarjun Kharge in Delhi.
She also stopped campaigning on the ground even as many of her supporters continued to demand a leadership role for her in the party.
Why she matters in Haryana politics
Selja belongs to the Chamar community, a dominant caste among the SCs, who in turn constitute around 21% of the state population and are electorally very important for all political parties.
Apart from 17 SC-reserved seats, there are 30 other assembly constituencies where Dalits form at least 20% of the electorate.
While the Congress has several other Dalit leaders, Selja became popular due to her ability to connect with people. This helped her cement her position as the Dalit community’s representative in Haryana.
The 2024 Lok Sabha was a watershed moment for her after her overwhelming victory from the Sirsa seat. Besides, she played a vital role in the victory of the party’s candidate from another reserved seat, Ambala, which is also her former bastion.
Political analyst Kushal Pal told The Wire that her poll victory in Sirsa took her popularity to a greater level, especially among Dalits and other disadvantaged communities.
Therefore, her visible absence in the Congress poll campaign was certainly not good news for the party, which aims to stop the BJP forming its successive third government in the state, Pal said.
He added that the Congress must resolve the issue surrounding her at the earliest and bring her on board to campaign for the party. Otherwise, it may harm its poll prospects among the Dalit community and give an advantage to BJP, which is otherwise facing an uphill task in beating anti-incumbency, he added.
According to Pal, the BJP’s Dalit outreach has contracted ever since it first formed the government in 2014. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, it lost both its reserved parliamentary seats to the Congress. That is the reason the BJP was quick to exploit the Congress’s internal rift vis-a-vis Selja by making it an issue of Dalit pride and trying to gain Dalits’ sympathy ahead of the polls.
He believes that the Congress at this juncture must maintain cohesion among all social coalitions in the state’s caste-driven politics. Any imbalance may hurt the party’s poll prospects and any harm to Congress will certainly be to the BJP’s gain, Pal continued to say.
