The Haryana Congress election committee met on a stormy note here on Thursday with known detractors of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda using the opportunity to take on him.

Sources said Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Selja criticised what she called individual-centric advertisements worth crores of rupees put out by the state Government on the eve of the elections. She said the advertisements eulogised only one individual as if there was no UPA or the Congress party at the Centre.

Finance Minister Birender Singh said there was nothing wrong with his public expression of having chief ministerial ambitions. However, the Chief Minister maintained that he owed his position to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and he would not hesitate to step aside if she did not want him there.

Though Singh’s long-standing ambition to occupy the top slot is well-known, he stressed it more to drum up his electoral prospects after the decision of INLD leader Om Prakash Chautala to contest against him from the Uchana Kalan constituency. Singh cannot afford taking any chances considering that the INLD led from the constituency by over 30,000 votes during the Lok Sabha polls.

Minister of State for Tourism Kiran Chaudhry opposed any attempt to give tickets to those who had worked against her daughter Shruti Chaudhry in the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency during the Lok Sabha polls. While taking this position, Chaudhry is trying to block the re-nomination of her two close relatives—Ranbir Singh Mahendra and Somvir Singh—as party candidates. Somvir Singh, son-in-law of Bansi Lal, is a sitting Congress MLA from Loharu.