New Delhi, April 30: Taking strong exception to growing incidents of caste-related violence in Haryana, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday shot off a letter to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda expressing concern about such incidents and demanding a report on the violence against Dalits at Mirchpur village in Hisar district, it was reliably learnt.
She was also said to have instructed the Chief Minister to take strict action against the accused involved in April 21 Mirchpur incident in which two persons, including a physically challenged girl, were burnt alive when a mob belonging to a dominant community torched several houses belonging to Dalit families.
The Congress president sent the letter on a day when AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi visited the village to meet the families of Dalit victims. Congress sources said Sonia’s letter and Rahul’s visit signaled the party leadership’s “growing impatience” with the way Hooda government has been handling caste-related violence.
Many leaders from the state have been complaining to the high command about Hooda government’s failure to check violence involving the dominant Jat community that has led to the alienation of Dalits, the party’s traditional stronghold, said sources.
Sources said the central leadership of the party was also “concerned” about the state administration’s “lack of seriousness” in reining in khap panchayats, which have been defying the law of the land ordering honour killings and social boycotts of people who defied their diktats.
The Chief Minister, who has been under fire from within the Congress for his perceived softness for such community councils, has argued that khap panchayats were “social situations” and stringent actions against them could create a law and order situation.
Even before the Assembly election last October, Hooda had been under attack from detractors for what they believed was his Jat-centric politics. When the Congress failed to secure a clear majority in the Assembly election, they launched an aggressive campaign for change of leadership in the state and jointly proposed Dalit leader Kumari Selja’s candidature for the post of Chief Minister.
The CM’s detractors had then argued that Jats had not voted for the Congress beyond Rohtak despite Hooda aggressively wooing them — as was evident from a considerable improvement in the Indian National Lok Dal’s tally in the Assembly — and it was, therefore, time to consolidate the non-Jat votebank.
While the party high command had then opted for Hooda, given his proven acumen to take on Bhajan Lal and deal with Independents to secure a majority in the Assembly, the central leadership had also sought to give a message to the CM constituting a coordination committee that included prominent Hooda-baiters like Selja and Birendra Singh, among others.
—Agencies