The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday announced that the party will contest the Haryana Assembly election all alone, dismissing the possibility of an electoral alliance in the State with the Congress, its INDIA bloc partner.
The AAP also declared that it will contest all 90 seats in the Assembly election, which are due later this year.
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, the Congress and the AAP in Haryana contested the polls under a seat-sharing arrangement as Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) coalition partners. The AAP contested one seat (Kurukshetra) of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the State, which it lost.
AAP leaders, including Rajya Sabha members Sanjay Singh, Sandeep Pathak and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann addressed a joint conference here announcing to the media that party will go solo with full strength in the impending Assembly election in Haryana.
‘Unprecedented’
Mr. Pathak said Haryana’s Assembly election is going to be unprecedented. “There will be a town hall on July 20, in which [Delhi Chief Minister] Arvind Kejriwal’s guarantee for Haryana will be launched. After this, the AAP will appoint Assembly presidents and will contest the elections with full strength. Aam Aadmi Party will contest elections in every Assembly, every village and every booth,” he said.
Mr. Mann said the people of Haryana have given a chance to all the political parties over the years, but these parties looted the State. “Now, the people of Haryana want change. Arvind Kejriwal changed the politics of the entire country. We will fight as a team with full strength,” he said.
Hitting out at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Haryana, Mr. Singh alleged that Haryana has become a stronghold of “extortion gangs” amid a deteriorating law and order situation. “We saw how the farmers of Haryana were lathi-charged in the movement and the demands of the farmers of Haryana and Punjab were compromised. He said that unemployment is the biggest problem of Haryana... The BJP government has come up with a scheme like ‘Agniveer’, which is an insult to the Indian Army and also to the youth of Haryana who proudly join the Army. Agniveer scheme is a betrayal to the country and should be withdrawn,” he said.
