After talks between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress for an alliance in the Haryana Assembly election had hit a stalemate over the number of seats, leaders of the two parties seemed to have ironed out the differences in a series of meetings over the past 48 hours. As per sources from both parties, an announcement on the alliance is likely on Monday (September 9, 2024).
The AAP had said it would announce a separate list of candidates on Sunday (September 8, 2024) but did not do so. It is likely to get five to six seats in the 90-member Assembly, said a party source. Pehowa, Gulha, Jind, Kalayat and Gurugram were the seats on offer; another seat in Sirsa along the Haryana-Punjab boundary could also come its way.
Three of these seats fall in the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha constituency from where the party’s State president Sushil Gupta had contested earlier this year. The party was very keen on Jind and Kalayat Assembly segments with Mr. Gupta and the party’s senior vice-president Anurag Dhanda likely to contest from the respective seats. However, a senior Congress leader too was seeking a ticket for his son from Kalayat.
“We were very clear that there can be no agreement without the Congress offering Kalayat and Jind seats to us,” said the source.
The AAP also demanded Sohna and Ballabgarh but Congress refused them.
Dissent surfaces
Meanwhile, AAP Delhi MLA and former Minister Somnath Bharti spoke against the alliance on Sunday (September 8, 2024), stating that the Congress had not campaigned for the AAP candidates in the Lok Sabha election in Delhi.
“Before the AAP-Congress alliance is inked in Haryana, @AamAadmiParty must evaluate the effectiveness of similar alliance formed in Delhi during Loksabha Election. While my national Convenor @ArvindKejriwal ji did roadshows for all the three Congress Candidates, senior leaders and cabinet ministers of AAP campaigned for all three Congress candidates but AAP candidates especially myself were not supported at all especially by Congress Delhi and local leaders,” Mr. Bharti said in a post on social media platform X.
He said that a majority of AAP supporters were not in favour of such a “misfit and selfish” alliance and AAP should contest in all seats in Haryana, Punjab and Delhi on its own.
Other leaders in the party expressed a similar opinion. “Forming an alliance with Congress for the Assembly election will hurt us in the long run. We came to power attacking the Congress and how can we form an alliance with the Congress in the Assembly level too?” an AAP leader said.
The leader cautioned that if AAP were to ally with Congress in Haryana, then the latter would ask for seats in the Delhi Assembly election due early next year. “Why should we give them seats in Delhi when they do not have even a single MLA currently? Also, it will be very difficult to convince our supporters about fighting together in the Assembly election,” the leader added.
Published - September 08, 2024 09:29 pm IST
