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Congress, AAP start alliance talks for Haryana polls
The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have started intense negotiations for a last-minute alliance in the upcoming October 5 Haryana elections.
The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have started intense negotiations for a last-minute alliance in the upcoming October 5 Haryana elections, people aware of the matter said on Tuesday.
The parleys continued even as Congress functionaries, aware of the details, said the party’s Cental Election Committee (CEC) has approved candidates for 66 out of the total 90 seats for the polls.
According to the two parties, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal, a trusted lieutenant of former party chief Rahul Gandhi, and AAP’s Rajya Sabha lawmaker Raghav Chadha have already held two rounds of discussions. AAP functionaries said that it wants 10 seats but the Congress has so far offered seven.
Haryana is the only state among the four poll-bound regions this year where the principal opposition parties don’t have a formal alliance. In Jammu & Kashmir, the Congress and the National Conference has finalised the modalities of a seat pact. In Maharashtra, where elections are due later this year, the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) are in an alliance since 2019. And in Jharkhand, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Congress are in an alliance. “Gandhi told us yesterday to explore whether the request is beneficial for us or not and if it is beneficial, it should be taken forward. He did not say anything more than that...There is nothing with any other party. Maybe Samajwadi Party and CPI also made a request,” Congress in-charge of Haryana Deepak Babaria said on Tuesday.
When asked if the state unit of the Congress is in favour of an alliance, Babaria added “Nobody is opposing, all decisions are taken unanimously.”
Babaria’s statement come weeks after former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Hooda ruled out any alliance with the AAP and announced that the Congress will fight the polls alone. Two close aides of Gandhi indicated that he wanted the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) to continue beyond the Lok Sabha polls and to take the allies along with the Congress wherever possible.
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The development also came as a surprise to a section of the Congress as the tie-up between the AAP and Congress was, so far, limited to three states in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The two parties had a pact in Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat but not in AAP-ruled Punjab, where the Congress is the primary opposition party.
The CEC of the Congress met on Tuesday to discuss the Haryana seats. A senior member of the panel told HT that “primary discussion” was held for all 90 seats but candidates for roughly 50% of the seats were decided. “The CEC has approved candidates for 66 seats. The remaining seats are wide open,” said the leader, requesting anonymity. “In today’s CEC, there was no discussion on AAP.”
If the alliance finally takes place, it would be the first time that the AAP and the Congress join hands in state elections.
AAP’s Haryana chief Sushil Gupta said the party’s central high command was yet to seek their viewpoint on the poll tie-up. “We are gearing up to contest all the 90 assembly seats. A call for a tie-up has to be taken by the party high command and not the state unit. We will express our viewpoint when asked,’’ Gupta said.
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The two parties fought the Lok Sabha elections together in Haryana, with the Congress contesting nine out of 10 Lok Sabha seats, leaving Kurukshetra for the AAP. The Congress and the BJP won five seats each.
In the upcoming elections, the BJP will be looking for a third straight term, while the Congress will seek to continue its Lok Sabha polls momentum.
Congress MP Kumari Selja earlier ruled out an alliance with the AAP, saying that the party was capable of contesting all 90 assembly seats on it own.
The AAP fought the 2019 elections on its own and got less than 1% of the votes on the 46 seats in seats it contested.
