New Delhi:

The Congress late Wednesday night released a list of five candidates for the Haryana Assembly elections. Earlier in the day, the party announced its candidates for 40 seats.

The party has named former Haryana Youth Congress chief Sachin Kundu as its candidate for the Panipat Rural seat, and state youth wing’s spokesperson Rohit Nagar as its candidate for Tigaon.

Besides them, the Congress named Parimal Pari for the Ambala Cantt seat, Satbir Dublain for the Narwana-SC reserved seat, and Sarva Mitra Kamboj for Rania.

This was Congress’ fourth list for Haryana and so far, it has declared the names of 85 candidates for elections to the 90-member Assembly.

In the third list released earlier in the day, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Surjewala’s son Aditya was named as the party candidate for the Kaithal seat.

Other candidates named in the third list include Chander Mohan for Panchkula, Ch. Nirmal Singh (Ambala City), Akram Khan (Jagadhri), Raman Tyagi (Yamunanagar), Mandeep Singh Chatha (Pehowa), Vikas Saharan (Kalayat), Sultan Singh Jadola (Pundri), Rakesh Kumar Kamboj (Indri), Sumita Virk (Karnal), Virender Singh Rathore (Gharaunda), Varinder Kumar Shah (Panipat City), Jai Bhagwan Antil (Rai), Mahabir Gupta (Jind), Balwan Singh Daulatpuria (Fatehabad), Jarnail Singh (Ratia), Gokul Setia (Sirsa), Bharat Singh Beniwal (Ellenabad), Chander Parkash (Adampur), Rahul Makkar (Hansi), Ram Niwas Ghorela (Barwala), and Ram Niwas Rara (Hisar).

The party has named Anil Mann for Nalwa seat, Rajbir Singh Fartiya for Loharu, Sombir Singh (Badhra), Manisha Sangwan (Dadri), Anita Yadav (Ateli), Rao Narinder Singh (Narnaul), Jagdish Yadav (Kosli), Mohd Israil (Hathin), Karan Dalal (Palwal), Raghubir Tewatia (Prithla), Vijay Pratap (Badhkal), Parag Sharma (Ballabgarh), and Lakhan Kumar Singla (Faridabad).

Congress candidates named in the third list, who are contesting elections from seats reserved for Scheduled Castes, are Pradeep Narwal from Bawani Khera, M.L. Ranga (Bawal-SC), Pearl Chaudhary (Pataudi-SC), Pooja Chaudhary (Mulana-SC), and Devinder Hans (Guhla-SC).

The last date for filing nomination papers is September 12. Voting for single-phase Assembly elections will be held on October 5 while the counting will be taken up on October 8.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The Congress-Aam Aadmi Party alliance in Haryana has also gone south, the way it did in Punjab. On Monday, Aam Aadmi Party released its first list of 20 candidates, putting a firm stop to any possibility of a rethink. Since then, the party has so far released 4 more lists of candidates — declaring a total of 70 candidates so far. But what made the prospective tie-up — in which the Central leaders of both parties were interested — collapse? More importantly, will it lead to an early Christmas for the BJP in the coming assembly election?

The Congress has been tight-lipped about this alliance and its collapse because the initiative came from Mr Gandhi. AAP also has been choosing its words carefully.

Sources said like Punjab, it was the local leaders of the Congress who were skeptical about the alliance with the AAP. Arvind Kejriwal’s party traces its inception to enmity with the Congress during Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement.

Over the years, it has been growing at the cost of the Congress, slowly encroaching upon the political space of the Grand Old Party – reason why no state unit of the Congress, be it Delhi, Punjab or Haryana, is bitter about AAP.

This is also why the Congress state unit was stalling, with a one-step-forward- two-steps-back strategy.

The state Congress leaders were sanguine that the party would not have received any special benefit from an alliance with AAP. On the contrary, there were concerns that a tie-up would alienate Congress’s leaders in preferred seats that would have gone to AAP under a seat sharing deal.

Sources said though Rahul Gandhi spoke of showing a big heart, it became difficult to implement it given the ground realities.

AAP’s performance in Haryana in 2019 has been lacklustre. The party had fielded candidates on 46 seats, but got less than one per cent of the votes. The recent Lok Sabha election was no different. Under the alliance with the Congress, AAP had got the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat, but lost the contest by around 30,000 votes.

In the current scenario – where the Congress is the main Opposition in the state and hopes to make inroads after three consecutive terms of BJP rule – AAP, however, can still play spoiler for the Congress in at least seven seats.

These include assembly seats like Kalayat, Rania, Pehwa, Barwala, Jind, Bhiwani and Gurugram. Of these, Congress could not win even a single one last time but hopes to do better this year.

New Delhi:

Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, which failed to win a single seat in Haryana in the last state election and ended up with 1 per cent votes, hopes to play the kingmaker this time. The ambition was voiced by its senior leader Raghav Chadha, days after AAP ended all possibilities of an alliance with the Congress and announced its first 20 candidates.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Chadha said today, “This time government will not be formed in Haryana without AAP”.

Another post predicted a dire outcome for Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janata Party or JJP, which had had aided the BJP to form an alliance government in 2019.

“The people of Uchana had elected the VIP leader of JJP with great expectations but that leader betrayed the people. This time the JJP is going to become Jamanat Japt Party (the paty which lost its deposit),” read a rough translation of the post by Mr Chadha.

The JJP had contributed 10 crucial seats in the last alliance when the BJP had won 40 of the 90 seats, six less than the majority mark.
That alliance collapsed ahead of the Lok Sabha elections as the JJP complained that the farmers’ anger against the BJP was costing it its crucial support base.

The results of the Lok Sabha polls reflected just what the JJP was apprehensive of. It failed to win a single seat in the Lok Sabha election. The BJP was down from 7 to 5 and the gap was filled by the Congress which went up from one to five seats.

It is the JJP’s political space the AAP wants to occupy now, but with the Congress clearly retaining its position as the state’s main Opposition party that is hoping to be on the cusp of a comeback, AAP’s task may not be easy.

The assembly election will be held in Haryana in a single phase on October 5 and the votes will be counted on October 8.

New Delhi:

The Aam Aadmi Party has released a first list of 20 candidates for next month’s Haryana election.

The AAP is in talks with the Congress for an alliance, but negotiations have hit a roadblock over the number of seats to be allotted to the party; the Delhi party reportedly wants to contest at least 10 of the state’s 90 Assembly seats but the Congress is only willing to give up seven.

New Delhi:

The Congress and the BJP both face hiccups in finalising candidates for next month’s Haryana election, sources told NDTV Friday, days after the former began seat-sharing talks with the AAP, seeking a revival of the INDIA alliance that won five of 10 Lok Sabha seats in April-June.

As far as the Congress is concerned, as it was with seat-share talks with other opposition parties before the Lok Sabha election, there is disagreement between state and central leaders. Congress leaders in Haryana are unwilling to concede too many of Haryana’s 90 seats.

Differences have also emerged, sources said, over which seats the AAP can get; some of those identified by Arvind Kejriwal’s party are those to which the Congress’ influential former Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda expects to nominate his loyalists.

The Congress and the AAP announced an ‘in-principle’ deal on Wednesday.

This was after Rahul Gandhi urged his party to form an alliance with the AAP to guard against the division of votes. Mr Gandhi has been clear that it will take a concerted effort by the opposition to defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, whether in central or state elections.

In early exchanges the AAP wanted 10 seats but the Congress would offer five to seven only, with another likely to go to Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, another INDIA member.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Haryana the Congress contested nine seats (and won five) and left the tenth to the AAP, but Mr Kejriwal’s party failed to wrest Kurukshetra from the BJP.

Sources said the Congress has pointed to this, and that wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia will contest on its tickets, to claim it has the best chance of defeating the BJP.

BJP’s Haryana Election Issues

The BJP, meanwhile, faces internal squabbles after naming a first list of 67 candidates, with Jails Minister Ranjit Chautala and MLA Lakshman Napa quitting after being denied tickets.

Mr Chautala has said he will contest as an independent candidate, while Mr Napa met Congress leader Hooda at his residence and said he would join that party.

READ | Denied Haryana Poll Tickets, BJP Minister And MLA Quit Party

Ranjit Chautala is the son of Devi Lal Chaudhary, one of the state’s tallest and most respected political leaders, who was also twice Chief Minister and served as Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr Chautala was hoping to contest from Rania – the seat he won in 2019 as an independent but quit to join the BJP and contest the Hisar Lok Sabha seat, which he lost.

The BJP fielded Shishpal Kamboj instead.

Meanwhile, Karan Dev Kamboj has resigned as chief of the BJP’s OBC Morcha state unit after also being denied a ticket. “Perhaps the BJP does not need loyalists anymore,” he said, taking a swipe at the party for giving tickets to former rival leaders who have recently joined the party.

READ | On BJP’s Haryana 1st List – Jail Officer Who Gave Ram Rahim 6 Paroles

A significant name in the BJP’s first list is former prison official Sunil Sangwan – had who granted Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Ram Rahim parole a staggering six times.

When Is Haryana Election?

The Haryana Assembly election will be held on October 5. 

The election was first scheduled for October 1 but it was deferred by the Election Commission to honour the voting rights and traditions of the Bishnoi community, for whom a festival – the centuries-old Asoj Amavasya festival in remembrance of Guru Jambeshwar – is on October 2.

READ | Haryana Poll Dates Revised To October 5, Counting 3 Days Later

The Bishnois represent a sizeable voting community in at least three districts of the state.

Therefore, results for the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir elections – the first in the former state since 2014 – will now be announced on October 8 instead of October 4, the poll body said. 

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New Delhi:

Ahead of the upcoming Haryana assembly election, the Congress is reaching out to the masses and highlighting the rising cost of living under the current government, in its campaign ‘Kharche Pe Charcha’.

The ‘Kharche Pe Charcha’ campaign – seemingly a swipe at the names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Chai Pe Charcha’ and ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha initiatives – aims to reach out to the people at the grassroots level, particularly women, and draw comparisons between the prices of essential commodities during the Congress and BJP tenures in the state.

The Congress has been criticising the government over the rising cost of living.

The Congress women’s wing is at the forefront of the initiative. Posters, comparing the prices of various items during the Congress and current regimes, have been put up at markets across several districts of Haryana.

By focusing on inflation and the rising cost of living, the party aims to position itself as a viable alternative to the BJP’s 10-year government in Haryana.

The Election Commission today deferred the Haryana assembly poll date to October 5 from October 1, over a centuries-old festival of the Bishnoi community.

The counting of votes for Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana assembly polls will now be held on October 8 instead of October 4, the poll body said.

The decision has been taken to honour both the voting rights and traditions of the Bishnoi community, which has upheld a 300-400-year-old practice in remembrance of their Guru Jambheshwar, the Election Commission said.