Chandigarh: The alliance talks between Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for upcoming Haryana state polls concluded on Monday (September 9).
With no official confirmation from either side, it became aptly clear after AAP released its first list of 20 candidates on Monday afternoon and announced that it would release the remaining 70 candidates by late evening. AAP, as per media reports, was demanding 10 seats as part of a seat-sharing pact with Congress.
On the other hand, Congress has already released the names of 41 candidates in two separate lists and remaining names are expected to follow soon. September 12 is the last day to file nominations for the October 5 polls.
A statement by AAP Haryana convener Sushil Gupta offered more clarity on the confusion surrounding the alliance. He said that he did not want to get into the politics of allegations and counter-allegations on why alliance talks did not materialise and that the party had waited patiently but ultimately decided to contest alone
“We are fighting the battle to bring change in Haryana. Only three days are left for nomination. We have to line up our candidates within this time frame and all workers are fully gearing up,” he added.
Congress MP Deepender Hooda, commenting on the matter, said, “Every political party acts on one’s own interest.”
Both AAP and Congress fought Lok Sabha elections together in Haryana and other states as part of the larger INDIA bloc before parting ways.
The revival of their alliance talks surfaced last week after central leadership of the Congress including Rahul Gandhi showed an interest in exploring possible tie-ups with AAP for the upcoming assembly polls to send out a larger message of unity in the INDIA bloc. Congress had hoped that AAP would reciprocate this in the Delhi assembly polls due next February.
Why local Congress leaders walled the talks
According to media reports, AAP was demanding 10 seats in the 90-member assembly. However, as Congress began internal discussions about a possible tie-up, it escalated into a full-fledged controversy.
The state Haryana Congress leadership opposed alliance talks as they were not ready to accommodate AAP on these many seats. Some of the seats AAP was demanding already had strong Congress candidates, state leaders told the central leadership.
Other leaders, including former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, reportedly opposed any seat-sharing pact with AAP. Hooda even reportedly walked out of one of the party meetings held on the matter in Delhi
They were of the view that Congress, in light of its performance in the Lok Sabha elections, was capable of fighting and winning the Haryana polls on its own.
Moreover, leaders also believed that Congress would have gained nothing out of an alliance as AAP did not have a voter base in Haryana.
Instead, local Congress leaders worried that an alliance might give a platform to AAP and help find its footing in the region.
In the last state assembly elections, AAP had contested 46 seats but all their candidates forfeited security deposits as its percentage at 0.48% votes was even lower than NOTA’s 0.52%.
In the recent Lok Sabha elections, AAP had a tie-up with the Congress for the Kurukshetra seat. However, AAP’s Sushil Gupta lost to BJP’s Naveen Jindal by 29,021 votes, polling just 3.94% of the votes.
Congress leaders attributed AAP’s higher vote share to their local party workers and argued that they would have won the seat had they contested it.
Meanwhile, AAP’s first list includes senior leaders such as Anurag Dhanda, who will contest from Kalayat in Kaithal district, and Kuldeep Gadrana, who will face off against Digvijay Chautala of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) in Dabwali.
AAP has also fielded candidates in constituencies where the Congress has sitting MLAs, including Naraingarh, Assandh, Samalkha, Rohtak, Bahadurgarh, Badli, Beri and Mahendragarh .
