By IANS
Chandigarh : Haryana Education Minister Phool Chand Mullana, appointed the new state Congress president, resigned from the Bhupinder Singh Hooda cabinet Friday.
Mullana was named president of the state unit by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
The party also named Kuldeep Sharma, son of senior Congress leader Chiranji Lal Sharma, as working president of the party.
The ruling Congress in Haryana did not have a full time president since Bhajan Lal resigned from the post last year following differences with the party leadership at the centre and state. He is only a Congress legislator now.
Another Congress leader, Ram Prakash, was appointed Congress working president earlier this year. He was later elected to the Rajya Sabha.
Ram Prakash had entered into a controversy with Deputy Chief Minister Chander Mohan, elder son of Bhajan Lal, last week by accusing him of cross-voting in the recent presidential poll.
Chander Mohan Thursday slapped a criminal defamation complaint against Ram Prakash in a local court in Chandigarh, an indication of the rift within the ruling Congress.
Hooda had pipped Bhajan Lal to the post of chief minister in March 2005 after the party won a big victory in the assembly polls, bagging three-fourths of the seats in the 90-member assembly.
The resignation of Mullana from the cabinet Friday has paved the way for Hooda to accommodate at least three new ministers. Two ministerial berths were already vacant in the two-and-a-half-year-old Hooda government.
There is speculation that Chander Mohan might be dropped from the Hooda cabinet. His younger brother and Bhiwani MP Kuldeep Bishnoi, who was recently suspended from the Congress for criticising the state and central leadership, has been embarrassing Hooda over many issues in the last few months.