No alliance with Congress? Haryana AAP chief says party will contest all seats
An AAP-Congress alliance for next month’s election in Haryana on Monday afternoon looked unlikely, as AAP state unit chief Sushil Gupta said his party would contest all 90 seats alone.
This came minutes after the AAP released its first list of 20 candidates, including 11 names for seats on which the Congress has announced candidates. Mr Gupta said a second list would be released “soon”.
“The AAP has taken its decision… We have gone ahead and announced candidates for 20 seats (and) more lists are coming. We are confident of our results in all 90 seats…”
“We awaited the alliance because the Congress has a strong organizational structure that supports us running for office in every assembly. After demonstrating our patience, we made our list available.” “At the national level, we were partners in the Bharat Gathbandhan,” Mr. Gupta stated to reporters.
Until last week, the AAP was in a “wait and watch” mode as talks with the Congress hit a roadblock.
The two parties had reached an “in-principle” agreement to rekindle the alliance, which prevented the BJP from winning all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana for the second consecutive election.
But working out a seat-share agreement proved difficult; The AAP wanted 10 seats, but the Congress was willing to give only seven, as its ally had failed to win the seat allotted to it in the general election – Kurukshetra, which the BJP won. The Congress contested the other nine seats and won five.
For this election, sources said the Aam Aadmi Party wanted seats in Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s home turf, which he was hoping to allocate to his loyalists.
Mr Hooda told NDTV last month that he had not spoken to AAP’s state leaders since the general election, and said the alliance was not limited to the state, where”There is a conflict between the Congress and the BJP.”
