Latest jolt to Haryana Congress, Kiran Chaudhary and Shruti Chaudhary resigns; likely to join BJP tomorrow

What started before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections seems to be coming to an end before the 2024 Haryana assembly elections, Kiran Chaudhary, the senior firebrand congress politician from Bhiwani-Tosham region, who once constituted a power clout because of her closeness to the Gandhi family in Delhi, today resigned from the Congress party along with her daughter Shruti Chaudhary. The mother-daughter duo will likely join the BJP tomorrow along with some other politicians of Congress plagued by the Bhupender Singh Hooda group.

“It is most unfortunate that the Congress Party in Haryana is being run as a personal fiefdom leaving no space for sincere voices like mine, who have been stifled, humiliated, and conspired against in a most well-orchestrated and systematic manner, thus, significantly hampering my diligent efforts to represent our people and uphold the values, I have always stood for,” said Kiran in her letter to Congress party president Mallikarjun Kharge.

Kiran joined Congress on persuasion of Rajiv Gandhi and became the General Secretary of the All Indian Mahila Congress in 1986. Known for her closeness to the Gandhi family in her early years, Kiran was elected to the Delhi assembly as the deputy speaker in 1998. In 2005, she contested the by-election of the Haryana Legislative Assembly from the Tosham constituency which was earlier held by her husband but was left vacant due to his demise.  In 2005, she was the Cabinet Minister of State for Forest, Environment, Tourism, and Sports in Haryana. She was then elected to the Haryana Assembly from the Tosham constituency three times in a row, in 2009, 2014, and 2019.  In 2009, she took charge as the Cabinet Minister for Excise and Taxation & Public Health Engineering in the Bhupinder  Singh Hooda government. In 2014, she became the leader of the House in the Haryana assembly.

Kiran Chaudhary was expected to go the rebel’s way after the Congress party denied a ticket to her daughter Shruti for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. She started blaming her bete noire and former CM of Haryana Bhupinder Singh Hooda for plotting her political “death”. Recently, she openly claimed that “ She sees no future of Congress in Haryana”.  , Shruti Choudhry who was also the working president of the Haryana unit of Congress party, wrote “ The Congress party in Haryana has, unfortunately, become one-person centric who has compromised the interest of the party for his own selfish and petty interests and it is thus time for me to move on so that I may continue to uphold the interest of my people and the values that I stand for.”, in her resignation letter to congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. 

The mother-daughter duo without naming Hooda in the letter blamed him as the reason for which Haryana Congress being run as a "personal fiefdom”. Notably, Kiran Chaudhary was a part of the SRK group in Haryana, which opposed the politics and choices of former CM Hooda. As Kiran Choudhry, told PTI that both she and Shruti, will be joining the BJP on Wednesday, the political pundits are saying Kiran took this decision eyeing the Rajya Sabha seat for her daughter and assembly ticket for herself. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for both Kiran Chaudhary and Shruti Chaudhary as they start their new innings from BJP in Haryana.