Removed from all party posts, rebel Kuldeep Bishnoi yet to part ways with Haryana Congress

Bishnoi’s decision not to vote for the Congress came after the party sidelined him in favour of naming Udai Bhan, a Bhupinder Hooda loyalist, as the Haryana Congress president. Bishnoi was not even considered for the post of four working presidents. In the interview with The Indian Express, later, he had gone on to take a jibe at Rahul Gandhi, calling him “an inaccessible leader who takes decisions under pressure.”

Bishnoi, who was widely expected to quit the Congress, has refused to do so thus far, despite three major political parties showing interest in him — the BJP, the Jannayak Janta Party, and the Aam Aadmi Party. Bishnoi is a four-time Member of the Haryana Legislative Assembly and a two-time Member of Parliament.

Although guarded over his next move, Bishnoi has already ruled out joining the JJP, which he dubbed a “choti-moti party” (a small political party).
Sources close to Bishnoi told The Indian Express that he was yet to make up his mind on whether to continue staying in Congress, reviving his own Haryana Janhit Congress, or quitting the party to join either the BJP or any other political party.

Over the last three weeks, Bishnoi has been issuing statements that he will announce his next course of action after talking to his supporters. For that he has had held several rounds of open public meetings at his residence and in several villages of his constituency Adampur in Hisar district.

Although he is yet to quit the Congress, Bishnoi’s attacks targeted at his bêtenoire CLP leader and former Chief Minister of Haryana, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, as well as the party high command has continued unabated. In an apparent reference to the party high command, Bishnoi tweeted on Thursday, “We must learn who is gold and who is simply gold plated… Good morning”.

Two days ago, he tweeted that “it was not necessary that everybody can understand everything because a weighing scale can only reveal the weight, but not the quality”.

On June 22, the day the Haryana civic poll results were announced, Bishnoi had taken another dig at his party high command for allegedly giving a free hand to Leader of Opposition, Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the state. In a sarcastic tweet, Bishnoi said, “The trends of free hand have started coming in,” while tagging a news clip that mentioned how Hooda-supported candidates were trailing in the former CM’s citadel Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bahadurgarh, and Meham.

Congress leaders close to Bishnoi said that he was expected to meet Haryana CM, Manohar Lal Khattar, this week to discuss issues pertaining to his constituency.

The Congress high command has been miffed with Bishnoi after he did not vote for the party’s nominee, Ajay Maken, during the June 10 Rajya Sabha polls. During the same polls, one Congress MLA’s vote was rejected allegedly due to wrong filling of the ballot paper, leading to Maken losing the polls.

BJP nominee Krishan Panwar, and BJP-JJP coalition supported Kartikeya Sharma who had filed his nomination and as an Independent candidate, made it to the Rajya Sabha on the two seats from Haryana.

After the fiasco, the Congress high command had sought a report from the party affairs in-charge Vivek Bansal on the facts and reasons as to how the party lost the Rajya Sabha battle despite having an adequate number of MLAs.

Contacted, Congress party sources told The Indian Express that despite Kuldeep Bishnoi’s defiance, the party was yet of the opinion that it should not lose a non-Jat leader who is considered to have a significant following, especially in the Hisar belt and neighbouring areas.