The Aam Aadmi Party has announced the names of 29 candidates for the upcoming Haryana Assembly election, even as the outcome of its talks for an alliance with the Congress remains shrouded in uncertainty.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led party released its first list of 20 candidates on Monday amid reports that it was close to finalising a seat-sharing deal with the Congress. On Tuesday morning, it announced the names of nine more candidates.
Fourteen of the nominees will contest from constituencies where the Congress has also fielded candidates.
The Congress has announced names for 41 Assembly seats so far. Haryana has a total of 90 Assembly seats.
On September 3, the Congress said that it was negotiating an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party for the election in the state.
On Monday, however, the Aam Aadmi Party’s Haryana chief Sushil Gupta said that his party released the list after showing patience. “We were a partner in INDIA alliance [but] at national level.”
The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party are constituents of the Opposition INDIA bloc that was formed ahead of the Lok Sabha elections to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance. However, they are opponents in Punjab and Delhi.
Talking to reporters, Gupta said that his party’s goal was to oust the “corrupt and chaotic” BJP government from power.
The INDIA bloc did not win any of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi in the recent general election. In Punjab, the Opposition alliance won 10 of the 13 seats despite the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress contesting separately.
In Haryana, the Congress contested nine out of the ten Lok Sabha seats, and won five of them. The Aam Aadmi Party contested the remaining seat of Kurukshetra as part of the INDIA bloc. The party’s Kurukshetra candidate Sushil Gupta lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Naveen Jindal, but got more than 5.13 lakh votes.
Haryana will head for polling on October 5. The counting of votes will take place on October 8, alongside that of Jammu and Kashmir.
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