New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday decided to go solo for the coming Haryana Assembly polls. The party released its first list of 20 candidates after the efforts to stitch together an alliance between the Congress and the AAP hit a roadblock. The parties failed to reach a consensus over seat-sharing even after several rounds of talks.
The AAP’s first list came in view of the nomination window for the polls closing on September 12. The 90-member state Assembly is scheduled to go to the polls on October 5.
The AAP has fielded candidates from Naraingarh, Assandh, Samalkha, Uchana Kalan, Dabwali, Meham, Rohtak, Bahadurgarh, Badli, Beri, Mahendragarh and Badshahpur. The Congress has already announced its candidates from these seats.
According to AAP insiders, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party was demanding 10 seats, while the Congress had offered it only five. According to the list of candidates shared by the AAP, its Haryana vice-president Anurag Dhanda will contest the election from Kalayat, considered to be a stronghold of former chief minister and veteran Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and Indu Sharma from Bhiwani. Vikas Nehra has been fielded from Meham, while Bijender Hooda is in the poll fray from Rohtak.
On the issue of an alliance with the Congress, AAP’s Haryana president Sushil Gupta said: “I want to say it very clearly that we have been preparing for all 90 seats since day one. There is not much time left for the polls, the last date for filing nominations is September 12. So the wait is over.”
He asserted that the AAP was in a position to offer a strong alternative in Haryana, adding that the party’s second list of candidates will also be released soon. On the question of whether the AAP’s decision to go solo will benefit the saffron party, he said the countdown for the ruling BJP’s exit has begun and added that “the AAP will not allow the BJP to benefit at any cost”.
Earlier in the day, Mr Gupta had said the AAP would release the names from all 90 seats if the Congress failed to seal the deal by the evening. The talks between the two parties were stuck over the number of seats to be contested by the AAP.
AAP MP Sanjay Singh echoed the same views and said the party will fight the polls with full strength. On the alliance, Mr Singh said: “We do not have sufficient time. We are now engaged in finalising the candidates’ names for the remaining seats.”
On Sunday, AAP leader Raghav Chadha, who was holding talks with Congress leaders over a prospective alliance, said both parties were trying to form a coalition for the Haryana polls, keeping aside their individual aspirations, and talks were going in a positive directions.
However, some in the party still feel that the alliance will be formed and the first list was merely a pressure tactic, but as time passes the chances of an alliance become bleaker. The last date to file nominations is September 12
The failure of the AAP and the Congress to agree on a seat-sharing arrangement in Haryana also puts a question mark on the possibility of a tie-up between the two parties in Delhi, which is scheduled to go to the polls early next year.
The Congress and the AAP had fought the Lok Sabha polls together in Delhi while they had contested the election separately in Punjab. In the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had given one seat to the AAP in Haryana, which it had contested unsuccessfully. In the 2019 Haryana polls, the AAP had contested 46 seats, but failed to taste success.
