AAP-Congress Alliance Fails in Haryana Over Seat-Sharing Dispute

New Delhi:The Aam Aadmi Party's insistence on 10 out of the 90 Assembly seats proved to be the stumbling block that scuttled the party's proposed alliance with the Congress in poll-bound Haryana. Besides, a majority of the Haryana Congress leaders were also against the proposed alliance, which, according to sources, party's former president Rahul Gandhi was keen on.

The hopes for the much-hyped alliance between the two INDIA bloc parties ended with the Congress on Thursday declaring candidates for the 89 of the 90 Assembly berths in Haryana, leaving Bhiwani seat for the CPI(M). The AAP too declared all 90 candidates for the poll-bound state.

While the Congress and the AAP released fresh lists of candidates on Thursday, the schisms within the ruling BJP in Haryana over poll ticket distribution deepened further. BJP's Kurukshetra MP Naveen Jindal's mother Savitri Jindal, filed her nomination from the Hisar seat as an Independent candidate.

Ms Jindal, the richest woman in the country, entered the fray against minister and sitting MLA from Hisar Kamal Gupta.

After filing her nomination, she said, "I have pledged to serve Hisar for its development and transformation. The people of Hisar are my family. Om Prakash Jindal has established my relationship with this family."

Former BJP state unit chief Ram Bilas Sharma also filed his nomination papers from Mahendragarh as an Independent candidate. Hours later, the party fielded Kanwar Singh Yadav instead of Mr Sharma, a former minister.

On Thursday, the Congress released two fresh lists of a total of seven candidates, fielding former MLA Naresh Selwal from the Uklana reserve seat and Sarva Mitra Kamboj, a journalist who recently joined the party, from Rania and Jasbir Singh from Narnuad. The fifth list of three candidates came hours after the grand old party released a fourth list consisting of five candidates.

On the other hand, the AAP, on the last day of filing nominations, released its seventh and final list and also changed candidates for Badli and Narnaund seats. Adarshpal, who left the Congress to join AAP, has been made party candidate from Jagadhri.

After hectic parleys and much back and forth with the INDIA bloc allies, the Congress and the AAP ended up going into the polls with their original plan of going solo. The Congress has left one seat for the CPI(M); its talks with the AAP and the Samajwadi Party hit deadlocks. Since then, both the AAP and the Congress have released all the candidates.

While Mr Gandhi is understood to have nudged the state unit to explore possibilities for a tieup with the AAP, sources said senior Congress leaders in the state unit were against giving importance to the AAP and are confident of a good performance by the party going solo.

The Congress, however, stuck to its plans by not fielding any of its MPs, despite some of them harbouring such aspirations, but assuaged ambitions by giving tickets to several sons and relatives of the party's top leaders in the state.

While party MP Randeep Surjewala's son Aditya Surjewala has been fielded from Kaithal, former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal's grandson and cricket administrator-turned-politician Anirudh Chaudhary has been fielded from Tosham against his cousin Shruti Choudhry.

Mr Surjewala and Ms Choudhry, former deputy chief minister Chander Mohan, were among several leaders who filed nomination papers on the last date.

The scrutiny of the nomination papers will be conducted on September 13 and nominations can be withdrawn till September 16.

The ruling BJP is eyeing a hat-trick in the Assembly polls but faces a stiff challenge from a resurgent Congress, which is looking to cash in on the anti-incumbency factor. The Haryana Assembly is scheduled to go to polls on October 5. The counting of votes will be undertaken on October 8.