Birender blames it on Hooda's 10-year rule

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 11

Union Steel Minister and former Haryana Congress stalwart Choudhry Birender Singh said today that workers felt uncared for in the Congress because the Congress was a cadre-less party unlike the BJP where the situation was the opposite.

In a candid conversation with women journalists at the Indian Women’s Press Corps here, Birender Singh, a former member of the Congress Working Committee, spoke of how he felt about the BJP, his new political sanctuary.

“One fundamental difference I find is that the Congress is a movement and has no cadres while in the BJP worker is the foremost. When there is no cadre, no one looks after you. The BJP, on the other hand, gives complete attention to workers. Workers are the BJP’s principal driving force,” said Birender Singh, who quit the Congress in August, 2014, after a long innings of 42 years in the party.

Asked whether his heart still pines for the parent outfit, the former Congress man said: “The heart doesn’t exist in isolation of mind and body. I chose the BJP because it was led by a man who had acquired a pan-India presence.

Narendra Modi, like Germany’s Bismarck, is on a mission to unify India. For once, we have a leader who does not speak of governing India in a compartmentalised way.”

Birender Singh didn’t say a word against Congress President Sonia Gandhi but reiterated his legendary rivalry with Bhupinder Singh Hooda, his powerful cousin and former Chief Minister of Congress-ruled Haryana, whom he has blamed for his own exit from the party.

“Not only the land deal involving Congress President’s son-in-law Robert Vadra but all CLU projects cleared by the Hooda government must be probed. I have always maintained that 10 years of Hooda’s misrule led to the Congress’ drubbing in Haryana. I stand by my words,” the Minister said.