Haryana Assembly polls: Congress declares names of 9 more candidates

The Congress on Sunday released a list of nine candidates for the Haryana Assembly polls, fielding Brijendra Singh from Uchana Kalan and Mohit Grover from Gurugram.

With this list, the Congress has declared a total of 41 candidates for polls to the 90-member assembly.

Besides Brijendra Singh and Grover, the Congress fielded Ashok Arora from Thanesar, Kuldeep Sharma from Ganaur, Paramvir Singh from Tohana, Anirudh Chaudhary from Tosham, Balram Dangi from Meham, Manju Choudhary from Nangal Chaudhary and Vardhan Yadav from Badshahpur.

The Congress on Friday declared 32 candidates for the polls, fielding former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda from Garhi Sampla-Kiloi, state unit chief Udai Bhan from Hodal and wrestler Vinesh Phogat from Julana.

The party had first released a list of 31 candidates and a little later, in a statement, said the CEC had approved the candidature of Balbir Singh from the Israna (reserved for the Scheduled Castes) constituency.

Singh is the incumbent MLA from Israna.

The grand old party has renominated all its 28 MLAs.

Besides Hooda, Bhan and Phogat, the Congress has also fielded Mewa Singh from Ladwa to take on Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini.

The Congress is also engaged in seat-sharing talks with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the Haryana polls, with hard bargaining going on from both sides.

Some Congress leaders have expressed reservations over a tie-up with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party.

The 90-member Haryana Assembly is scheduled to go to polls on October 5 and the counting of votes will be undertaken on October 8.