New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday released its fourth list of five candidates for the Haryana Assembly polls, fielding former state youth Congress chief Sachin Kundu from Panipat Rural seat, and state youth wing’s spokesperson Rohit Nagar from Tigaon. With the release of its fourth list, the Congress has announced its candidates for 86 out of the total 90 Assembly seats. The party is yet to declare candidates for four seats, setting off speculation over a last-minute tie-up with AAP and other small outfits for the October 5 polls.
In its fourth list, the Congress has named Sarva Mitra Kamboj as its candidate from Rania and also nominated Parimal Pari and Satbir Dublain from Ambala Cantt and Narwana (SC reserved) seats, respectively. Congress’ third list of 40 candidates was released on Wednesday only. The third list included name of Congress MP Randeep Surjewala’s son Aditya Surjewala. He has been given ticket from Kaithal.
Congress open for last-minute tie-up with AAP?
As the Congress has yet not announced candidates for four seats in Haryana, it is being speculated that the party may forge an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Today is the last day of filing of nominations. The Congress and AAP were engaged in hectic talks for the past few weeks to explore the possibility of entering into a pre-poll alliance for the Haryana Assembly elections. However, the tie-up talks between the two parties hit a roadblock as they failed to reach a consensus on seat-sharing arrangements. The AAP wanted to contest 10 seats in the state but the Congress offered to allot only five to seven seats to the Arvind Kejriwal-led party. Amid impasse over the alliance talks, the AAP has so far released list of 70 candidates for the Haryana polls.
Congress-AAP alliance history
Notably, the Congress and the AAP fought the Lok Sabha polls, held earlier this year, together in Delhi but they contested the election separately in Punjab. In the general election, the Congress had allotted one seat to AAP in Haryana which it had contested unsuccessfully. In the 2019 Haryana Assembly polls, the AAP had contested 46 seats but could not manage to win even a single one.