Homecoming for former Haryana minister Nirmal Singh as he rejoins Congress

The senior leader and four-time MLA had quit the grand old party in 2019 and joined the Aam Aadmi Party.

New Delhi: In a boost to the Congress in Haryana, former Haryana minister and four-time Congress MLA from Ambala Nirmal Singh on Friday re-joined the party along with his daughter Chitra Sarwara at the party headquarters here.

The joining was done in the presence of former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, AICC in-charge for Haryana Deepak Babaria, and Haryana PCC chief Udai Bhan, and with Rajya Sabha MP Deepinder Hooda.

Nirmal Singh joined along with his supporters, who were present in large numbers at the party headquarters lawns.

Singh, who had quit the Congress in 2019 and joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Haryana, said it was a homecoming for him.

Asked if this would affect his ties with AAP, an ally of the I.N.D.I.A bloc, Bhupinder Singh Hooda said there has been no seat-sharing arrangement with AAP yet.

"The I.N.D.I.A alliance is a good and strong step, but there has been no decision on seat-sharing between allies of the opposition bloc. In a democracy, both the ruling and the opposition sides need to be strong and this is the first step," he told reporters.

Asked whether the Congress was willing to give any seats to AAP in Haryana, Hooda said it was a "hypothetical question" and, added, "We will talk about seat-sharing after some criteria and parameters are fixed."

Babaria said the party will be distributing tickets on the "merit and priority."

"It is also a matter to the family on who wants to contest - whether father or daughter," he said, when asked if both would be granted party tickets.

"Our first priority is Parliamentary election and the decision on assembly elections will be taken later at the time of polls," he said.

Hooda, who welcomed Nirmal Singh in the party fold, said he has the Congress DNA and said his association with him goes back to the 1970s, when both were in the Youth Congress.

The former chief minister said, it was important for everyone to strengthen the Congress to save the democracy in the country, and returning of Singh and Sarwara with do that both in Haryana and the national level.

Babaria said that Nirmal Singh has had a long inning with the Congress and started in the Youth Congress in 1976 and has been a former Youth Congress president in Haryana and a four-time MLA earlier.

He had been a minister for Revenue and Animal Husbandry in Haryana and was also general secretary and vice president of Haryana Congress, but for some reasons quit the party to join AAP in 2019, he said.

Babaria said Chitra was a leader of the Haryana Mahila Congress, before she joined the AAP.

Udai Bhan said Nirmal Singh is the 37th ex-legislator/minister who have joined the Congress in Haryana in the last one and a half years.