Former Union minister Kumari Selja has been appointed as the Congress party chief in Haryana. She will take over the post from Ashok Tanwar. Haryana affairs in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad announced the move to appoint Selja as state unit chief.
Meanwhile, former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has been made Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader and chairman of the party's election committee.
The appointment of Selja, a Rajya Sabha MP and daughter of four-time Sirsa MP Dalbir Singh, comes even as a factional feud within the state unit was threatening to hamper the party's prospects in the assembly elections to be held in October. Hooda and his supporters have been demanding that Tanwar be replaced.
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The high command of the party was forced to step in after Hooda, who has been demanding a change in the Haryana Congress leadership ahead of the assembly polls, threatened to break away from the grand old party.
Hooda had put his party on notice after he declared at his 'Maha Privartan Rally' rally on August 18 at Rohtak that it had "lost direction". During his rally in Rohtak, Hooda had given a warning to the Congress party for a leadership change, while supporting the Modi government's move to scrap the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370.
According to PTII, sources said his supporters wanted Hooda to be installed as the new Congress chief in the state, but the party leadership was not inclined to do so and wanted to replace Tanwar with a dalit leader, Selja.
(With PTI inputs)
