AAP-Congress Ties in Trouble Over Seat Sharing

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has decided to contest the upcoming Haryana Assembly polls independently after negotiations with the Congress over an alliance hit a roadblock. The party has released its first list of 20 candidates, signaling the end of efforts to form a coalition with the Congress due to disagreements over seat-sharing, despite several rounds of discussions.

The nomination window for the polls is set to close on September 12, with the state’s 90-member Assembly scheduled to go to the polls on October 5. The AAP has fielded candidates from constituencies including Naraingarh, Assandh, Samalkha, Uchana Kalan, Dabwali, Meham, Rohtak, Bahadurgarh, Badli, Beri, Mahendragarh, and Badshahpur, where the Congress has already announced its candidates.

Sources within the AAP revealed that the party, led by Arvind Kejriwal, was seeking 10 seats, while the Congress had offered only five. The AAP’s list of candidates includes its Haryana vice-president Anurag Dhanda, who will contest from Kalayat, a stronghold of former chief minister and veteran Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and Indu Sharma from Bhiwani. Vikas Nehra has been fielded from Meham, and Bijender Hooda from Rohtak.

Speaking on the issue of the alliance with the Congress, AAP’s Haryana president Sushil Gupta stated, “I want to say it very clearly that we have been preparing for all 90 seats since day one. There is not much time left for the polls, the last date for filing nominations is September 12. So the wait is over.” Gupta asserted that the AAP is in a position to offer a strong alternative in Haryana and added that the party’s second list of candidates will be released soon. When questioned about the AAP’s decision to go solo potentially benefiting the saffron party, he said the countdown for the ruling BJP’s exit has begun and added that “the AAP will not allow the BJP to benefit at any cost”.

The failure of the AAP and the Congress to agree on a seat-sharing arrangement in Haryana also raises questions about the possibility of a tie-up between the two parties in Delhi, which is scheduled to go to the polls early next year. The Congress and the AAP had fought the Lok Sabha polls together in Delhi while contesting separately in Punjab. In the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had allocated one seat to the AAP in Haryana, which the latter contested unsuccessfully. In the 2019 Haryana polls, the AAP had contested 46 seats but did not secure any victories.

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