'To crush senior leaders': Ajay Singh Yadav slams Congress after it fields Raj Babbar from Gurugram

The Congress on Tuesday announced the candidature of senior party leader Raj Babbar from the Gurgaon Lok Sabha seat.

Minutes later, Congress leader Ajay Singh Yadav, a contender for the seat, hit out at the Haryana unit of the party over a "deep-rooted" conspiracy "to crush senior leaders".

Babbar's name was announced a day after the nomination process began for all the 10 seats in Haryana where polling will be held in the sixth phase on May 25.

From Gurgaon, former Haryana Minister Yadav was also a contender. As Babbar's name was announced by the party, Yadav took to X to express his unhappiness.

"I will abide by the decision of the National leadership. But there is a deep-rooted conspiracy of few congress Haryana state leaders to crush the senior Congress leaders," Yadav, who is the party's chairman of the OBC department, said without taking any names.

"I am and will always work for the Congress Party," Yadav added.

With Babbar's announcement, the Congress has announced candidates for all the nine seats it is contesting in Haryana.

The Kurukshetra seat is being fought by the Aam Aadmi Party, a constituent of the opposition INDIA bloc.

It was being speculated that the party would field Babbar from Gurgaon where BJP veteran and Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh is seeking re-election.

Yadav's son is Congress' sitting MLA from Rewari. Considered Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda's bete noire, Yadav is not the only leader who has been ignored.

While Kiran Choudhary, a sitting MLA of the Congress, was eyeing a ticket for her daughter Shruti Choudhary from the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat, Birender Singh's son Brijendra Singh was a ticket hopeful from the Hisar seat.

Birender Singh, a former Union minister, and Brijendra Singh, the outgoing Lok Sabha MP from Hisar, had left the BJP recently and joined the Congress.