Haryana Congress Leader Backs 'No Chief Minister Face' Policy, Cites Punjab

Haryana Congress factionalism has come into the open again, with former assembly speaker Kuldeep Sharma urging the party leadership to avoid projecting any individual as the chief ministerial face ahead of the 2029 state elections, just as it has decided in Punjab that goes to polls next year.

In a letter addressed to the Congress leadership, Sharma backed Punjab in-charge Sachin Pilot's reported formulation that the party should contest elections under collective leadership, with Rahul Gandhi leading the campaign. Sharma said the approach would take Congress back to its "essential ethos", arguing that elections should be fought on the party's ideology and organisation rather than around a particular leader or family.

Taking a direct swipe at the politics of projecting a CM face, Sharma cited Haryana's past electoral setbacks, saying the party had repeatedly suffered losses when elections were centred around one person. He also warned that projecting an individual as a CM candidate well before the elections could restrict the party's outreach and prevent it from building a broad-based coalition of voters.

The letter appears to target the growing campaign around former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda's son, Deepender Singh Hooda, with Sharma specifically referring to the "cause of projecting himself as the chief ministerial face for 2029".

Sharma said such an approach would limit the Congress's outreach and create a "restrictive" political space for the party to build a wider social coalition. He urged Congress leaders to put an end to what he described as the "enthusiastically damning actions of one person against the party" and instead promote a collective leadership model in Haryana.

Sharma further said the question of who will become chief minister should be left to the Congress central leadership rather than being settled by individual leaders ahead of the elections.