Haryana polls: No alliance with Congress; AAP issues new list of candidates

Haryana polls: The Congress-AAP alliance seems to have collapsed as AAP released its second candidate list for Haryana on Tuesday and said that it will contest all 90 seats to challenge the BJP

The alliance deal between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) appears to have hit a dead-end. The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party released its second list of candidates on Tuesday. AAP’s Haryana unit chief Sushil Gupta said that the party will contest all seats for the 90-member state Assembly with the objective of uprooting the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party government.

In its second list, the AAP has announced the candidates for Indri, Sadhaura, Thanesar, Ratia, Adampur, Barwala, Tigaon, Faridabad and Bawal constituencies. Haryana will go to polls in a single phase on October 5 and the nomination period will close on September 12. 

AAP-Congress overlap on many seats

On Monday, AAP released its first list of 20 candidates, with several overlapping constituencies where Congress has also announced candidates, indicating that alliance talks have failed between the two INDIA bloc parties. “We waited till an appropriate time (for Congress). We will issue the second list today. The AAP will fight on 90 seats with full strength. We have only one aim to uproot the corrupt BJP government,” Gupta told news agency PTI.

In the second list, the AAP has named Krishan Bajaj from Thanesar constituency. In this seat, Congress contestant Ashok Arora will fight the poll battle. In the first list shared by AAP, overlaps were seen on multiple seats, including: Uchana Kalan, Rohtak, Meham among others.

The two parties will also fight against each other in Bahadurgarh, Badli, Beri, Samalkha, Assandh, Dabwali, according to their lists issued till now.

Significance of potential AAP-Congress deal

The failed alliance talks between AAP and Congress is largely being attributed to their disagreement over the seat-sharing arrangement. The AAP reportedly wanted to contest on double-digit seats, while the Congress was keen on handing them only single-digit seats. Some reports suggested that the Kejriwal-led party is demanding 10 seats while the Congress is offering five, leading to a deadlock in the discussions.

The Congress is keen on contesting together to prevent the division of votes as it hopes to ride on the anti-incumbency wave against the BJP, which has been in power in Haryana for the last decade. However, some party leaders have downplayed any impact of AAP running solo, noting that it has no base in Haryana.