The Congress on Tuesday named actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar as the party candidate for the Gurgaon Lok Sabha in Haryana. The candidates for the remaining eight seats which the party is contesting were announced last week.
Soon after the announcement, All-India Congress Committee Other Backward Classes department chairman Capt. Ajay Singh Yadav, who was also in the race for this seat, posted on X that “there is a deep-rooted conspiracy of a few Congress Haryana state leaders to crush the senior Congress leaders”, hinting at infighting in the party. The former Minister, however, added that he would abide by the decision of the party leadership.
Though Mr. Yadav refrained from naming anyone, he does not get along well with former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who is believed to have called the shots in finalising the candidates for Haryana. Earlier, former Hisar MP Brijendra Singh had also blamed the internal politics for denial of party ticket to him.
Of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, the Congress is contesting on nine. In the remaining seat, Kurukshetra, Aam Aadmi Party State unit president Sushil Gupta is the joint INDIA bloc candidate.
Mr. Babbar, who has earlier been party’s Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh, is pitted against Ahirwal leader Rao Inderjit Singh, who had quit the Congress to join the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014.
The Jannayak Janta Party has fielded Bollywood singer and rapper Rahul Fazilpuria from this seat.
The Gurgaon Lok Sabha seat, with over 25 lakh voters, has been represented by Mr. Singh since it was re-created in 2008.
In 2019, Capt. Yadav had lost to Mr. Singh with a margin of over three lakh votes.
Spread across three districts, the Gurgaon Lok Sabha seat comprises three Assembly segments of Muslim-dominated Nuh district which had voted overwhelmingly for the Congress in the previous Lok Sabha polls.
