New Delhi: The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday agreed for an “in-principle” alliance for the October 5 Haryana Assembly elections.
Insiders claim that the Congress will leave about five seats for the AAP which has asked for 10. The Congress will leave three seats for I.N.D.I.A. bloc partners NCP- SP, CPM and SP. In all, the Congress will be contesting on 83 seats.
Sources say that the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi was insistent that the anti-BJP votes should not get divided as had happened in the Gujarat Assembly election in 2022, where the AAP ate into the Congress’s vote share.
There wasn't any discussion on the seats of Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia. Everything will be finalized in the next two days, party leader Babria said.
A sub-committee consisting of AICC in-charge Deepak Babaria, treasurer Ajay Maken, and Deepender Singh Hooda will coordinate the nitty-gritties of the seat sharing.
Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, senior leaders Madhusudan Mistry and T.S. Singh Deo will oversee the talks with the AAP. From the AAP’s side, Rajya Sabha MPs, Sandeep Pathak and Raghav Chadha have been deputed to hold talks.
On Tuesday, the party’s central election commission for Haryana met once again and discussed about 41 seats and finalised 32. The party had already cleared 34 seats on Monday. The final list is likely to be released on Thursday.
AAP insiders claimed that two rounds of meetings had taken place between Chadha and Venugopal while the third round is likely to happen soon.
As there are nine Assembly seats per one Lok Sabha constituency, the AAP is aiming for 10 seats. During the Lok Sabha 2024 polls, AAP contested Kurukshetra constituency as per the seat-sharing formula with Congress, AAP sources claimed.
About the alliance with AAP, AICC general secretary in-charge of state Babaria said, "We are in talks with the AAP, but nothing has been finalised yet. We are exploring the possibilities."
