Chautala, BJP list candidates for Haryana

The first list of candidates of the ruling Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the February 3 Haryana polls were released today.

INLD president and Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala released a list of 47 candidates and virtually extended an invitation to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for a tie-up, saying chan-ges could be made even in this list if the alliance materialised.

The list comprises 21 sitting MLAs, including Chautala, who will contest from the Narwana constituency. Three changes have been made, with sitting MLAs Dharampal (Nilokheri), Dina Ram (Kalayat) and Bhag Singh Chatter (Uchana) replaced by RS Anjanthali, Pritam Singh Kolekhan and Desh Raj Nambardar, respectively.

Chautala denied that any talks had taken place between his party and the BSP for an alliance but said: "The INLD and the BSP are ideologically similar parties. We would be very happy if there is a tie-up between the two. If the BSP is willing, we could even make changes in this list."

"In politics, you cannot rule out any possibilities. But one thing is certain, we will not ally with either the Congress or the BJP," he added.

There are 17 new faces among the 47 candidates whose names were announced today.

The BJP, which is going it alone in the Haryana Assembly elections, finalised the first list of 39 candidates for the 90-member Assembly.

At a meeting of the parliamentary board and central election committee of the BJP, chaired by party president LK Advani, it was decided that the Assembly polls in Bihar and Jharkhand would be contested in alliance with Janata Dal (U), party general secretary Shivraj Singh Chauhan said.

He said the party was fielding five sitting MLAs and one former Member of Parliament Sudha Yadav, who had represented Gurgaon in the 13th Lok Sabha. Yadav will be contesting the Assembly seat from there. The party is putting up four women candidates, 15 farmers, 11 belonging to the backward classes and one representative of the media, Chauhan said.

The BJP, which had an alliance with the INLD before falling out on the eve of the general election in 2004, refuted the Chautala's charge that Chauhan had referred to the INLD as "untouchable".

Chauhan said what he had meant was that the BJP was not having an alliance with the INLD as the state government was "steeped in corruption and it had done nothing for the welfare of farmers, the poor and the weaker sections of society".

Chauhan said the party was not projecting anyone as its chief ministerial candidate in the three states going to polls next month.

The meeting was attended among others by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former party President M Venkaiah Naidu, party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, top leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, and Haryana unit president Ganeshi Lal.

The BJP, which has seven MLAs in the Haryana Assembly, including Kartar Bhadena, who had joined the party prior to the last Lok Sabha elections, is hoping to improve its tally.

Another round of meetings of the election committee would take place on January 8 and 9 to select candidates for the Jharkhand and Bihar polls.

The meeting also finalised the candidate for the Rajasthan Assembly by-election for the Loni seat where it is fielding Jagaran Patel.