Swaraj India to fight upcoming Haryana Assembly polls

The Swaraj India will fight the upcoming Haryana Assembly polls, projecting the outfit as a viable alternative to the ruling BJP, party leader Yogendra Yadav said Thursday.

"We have decided to contest the upcoming Haryana assembly polls," Yadav, who was accompanied by party's state unit president Rajeev Godara, told a news conference here Thursday.

He said the newly floated party had decided not to contest the Lok Sabha elections throughout the country as they wanted to focus on the issues of farmers and unemployed youth.

"We have decided to give one-third seats to women and one-third to the youth. We are going to focus on five issues--agrarian distress, remunerative prices to the farmers, unemployment relief for educated unemployed youth and we want a law which would ensure no liquor vend can be opened unless women of that Gram Sabha approve of it," he said.

For the unorganised sector workers, better wages and more secure better quality environment will be on top of our agenda, Yadav said.

He said Haryana has seen atrocities against Dalits, oppression of women and all kinds of law and order issues and the party wants every citizen to be treated equally.

On contesting the Haryana polls, which are due in October, he said, "We had contested municipal election and put up one or two candidates in Rajasthan, but this is our full state assembly election".

The Swaraj India will not project any face for the polls, the academician-turned-politician said.

"In this state, the entire politics is centred around caste, Jats versus non-Jats. We stand in resolute opposition of this, we are saying we want to bring all the 36 communities together," he said.

Asked that his party will be entering the fray at a time when the BJP recently swept all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana and has been making claims that it will win 75 plus assembly seats, Yadav replied, "Everyone is saying this is the worst time to get into elections. But we think this is the best time because this is when people are looking for an alternative, a viable alternative which we will provide".

"There is complete vacuum in Haryana, every day you hear of MLAs running away to BJP, every other day parties are disintegrating, Congress is fighting more against each other.

"If you look at parole plea filed by jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief and reactions from political leaders of the ruling and most opposition parties on this, it shows bankruptcy of Haryana politics, not a single opposition party has the guts to oppose Baba's parole. This shows the bankruptcy And this is where we will provide a viable alternative," he said.

Yadav said his party will issue an 'Imanpatra' with concrete policy proposals instead of election manifesto.

The party has been allotted 'whistle' as poll symbol by the Election Commission, he informed.