Bhupinder Hooda readies for face-off with the high-command, will the Gandhis listen?

Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is preparing for a major confrontation. The kind that could easily transcend the boundaries of the now saffronised state of Haryana and spill over into neighbouring Delhi where Rahul Gandhi is attempting, albeit rather feebly, to rebrand and resurrect the moribund Congress party.

Having lain low after he was definitively dumped by his once over-generous mentors at Number 10 Janpath in the wake of one of the party's worst assembly debacles last October, the two-term CM has re-emerged to reassert himself.

And for starters he is taking on two key Rahul Gandhi appointees - Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar, named ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in summer 2014, and Kiran Choudhry, who was made CLP leader contrary to Hooda's counsel in November 2014.

On January 8 Hooda and his evidently still loyal supporters have planned a grand house-warming at his newly allotted official residence (as former CM) in Chandigarh, where invitations have been hand-delivered to all party MP's, legislators and functionaries. The event has evidently been slotted to coincide with a party meeting that Tanwar has scheduled also in Chandigarh.

Hooda's house-warming notably follows a similar luncheon at his Rohtak home last Sunday (February 1) where a galaxy of state Congress men, including the 15 MLAs who won their seats in the last election, happily dug in while Tanwar, Choudhry and a few others fumed at the former CM's 'audacity' at still wanting to play patriarch, albeit from a safe distance.

But then it is not really about showing Tanwar, Choudhry or even the likes of former power minister and self-professed Hooda-hater Capt. Ajay Singh Yadav. Bhupinder Hooda is clearly flexing muscle with the singular aim of sending Delhi a message: that he still remains the only Congress leader with the capacity to pull a lot more than his own weight in Haryana. It of course helps that key party veterans like Birender Singh and several others that could have helped beef up Gandhi's plan to dump the former CM, have long abandoned ship for more lucrative prospects within the BJP.

Privately though Hooda must also have good reason to feel short-changed by both Sonia and Rahul. After all for ten long years as CM of Haryana, he had unquestioningly played his chosen role as the 'ultimate Gandhi loyalist'.

Though it is early days as yet and the next assembly polls in Haryana are not due until the winter of 2019, Hooda is clearly looking to call his favours. Will Sonia Gandhi intercede? More importantly, will Rahul listen?