Hooda, Selja bury hatchet in Ambala

AMBALA: Whatever may have been the impact of Congress Haryana in charge Gulam Nabi Azad’s bus parivartan yatra aimed at bringing bonhomie between warring leaders of the party in Haryana, at least former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and former Union minister Kumari Selja seem to have buried the hatchet.


Apart from his known loyalists like Kuldeep Sharma, only nomination process that Hooda attended in Haryana of a senior leader was that of Selja. On Monday, the two walked into the Ambala returning officer’s room together. A scene not witnesses in Sirsa, Hisar or Bhiwani-Mahendergarh from where Congress state president

Ashok Tanwar

, Bhavya Bishnoi and

Shruti Choudhry

filed nominations.

Hooda and Selja have long been each other’s bête noire. Though the situation between them was not as bad as between Hooda and Tanwar, they had not been really been seen together for over a decade and a half, except on major party events.

On Monday, a public meeting organized before Selja filed her nomination. Hooda was present there while Tanwar, Surjewala, Kiran Choudhry, Kuldeep Bishnoi were absent or had sent in some representative.

Responding to Hooda’s gesture, Selja too praised him for the development projects brought to Ambala during his tenure as CM from 2004 to 2014.

“We all had worked as team and he equally cared about all the nine assembly segments and gave various projects. Today he is here to join us in my nomination filing..” she said.

Hooda addressed Selja as younger sister. “Today my son is also filing the nomination in Rohtak. But, I shall go only after my sister files the nomination papers,” said Hooda.