The regional Haryana Vikas Party (HVP) yesterday announced its merger with the Congress party, making it a serious contender for power in the forthcoming Haryana state legislative assembly elections.

HVP Secretary-General Surender Singh made a formal announcement to this effect at the Congress central office amidst much fanfare.

He was welcomed into the party along with the HVP rank and file by Foreign Minister K. Natwar Singh, a fellow Jat community leader; party General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi; state Congress chief Bhajan Lal and the party spokesperson Girija Vyas.

Singh, son of HVP president Chaudhary Bansi Lal, read out a resolution passed unanimously by his party's executive committee to merge the party with the Congress party 13 years after its formation.

"The committee expressed full faith in the dynamic leadership of Sonia Gandhi," Singh said amidst the din created by his enthusiastic party workers who thronged the Congress central office in large numbers.

Earlier Singh called on Sonia Gandhi. Singh’s wife, Kiran Chaudhary, a senior leader of the Delhi Congress, is said to have worked hard for unification of the two parties.

The Akbar Road stretch housing the Congress office and Sonia's residence was sealed as the HVP workers started arriving in large numbers to celebrate the occasion, shouting pro-Sonia and Bansi Lal slogans.

Singh and other senior Congress leaders addressed the gathering outside the party office.

Interestingly, Bansi Lal himself was not present, giving rise to speculation that while he was opposed to the merger, he gave in to pressure from his son and daughter-in-law. Lal though signed the merger resolution in his capacity as the HVP president.

According to Congress party sources, under the arrangement worked out, while Singh may be appointed one of the general secretaries of the Congress in Haryana, Bansi Lal would be offered a gubernatorial assignment in the near future.

Bansi Lal, a close confidant of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, was among the senior central leaders of the party until he fell out with her son Rajiv Gandhi in 1990 upon being ignored. He floated a parallel organisation and was expelled from the Congress the same year.

He converted his parallel organisation into a political party and caused heavy damage to the Congress by aligning with the rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1995 to form a government in the northern state.

He, however, failed to retain power after the BJP opted to align with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) for 2000 state polls.

HVP's slide started from there as the ruling party managed to win only two seats in the state polls. The slide continued further when it failed to win even a single seat in the May Lok Sabha elections.Eager to get the HVP on board to increase its vote bank, especially among Jat voters of the state, the Congress party made the first move by nominating Kiran Chaudhary as its candidate for the Rajya Sabha from Haryana.

Though Kiran lost the election, it brought the Congress-HVP leaders on the same platform for the first time, paving the way for the merger.

The Congress party is now expected to pose a tough challenge to the INLD during February state assembly polls since traditional Congress voters, who had drifted towards HVP, may now opt to vote for the unified party.