Congress in seat-sharing talks with AAP for Haryana Assembly polls

The Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) could revive the seat-sharing alliance for the upcoming Haryana Assembly elections they had in the state for the Lok Sabha polls.

According to sources, at a meeting of the Congress’ central election committee on Monday evening, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi stressed that the INDIA bloc’s votes should not get split. 

The committee held a second meeting on Tuesday evening to finalise the party’s list of candidates for the elections to the 90-member Haryana Assembly. 

The party has asked party treasurer Ajay Maken, Haryana in-charge Deepak Babaria, and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to finalise the alliance with the AAP, with Congress General Secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal entrusted with overseeing the negotiations.

For the AAP, which is demanding 10 seats, Rajya Sabha MPs Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak will negotiate the talk with the Congress.

However, the Congress, according to sources, has proposed that the AAP should contest five seats as part of the alliance while the Samajwadi Party and Left parties could contest one seat each. The Congress is also keen to field wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia in the Assembly polls.

The Congress and AAP had seat-sharing alliances in Haryana, Delhi, and Gujarat in the Lok Sabha elections but not in Punjab. In Haryana, the Congress had contested nine of the 10 seats, winning five, while the AAP had contested one seat, that of Kurukshetra, which it had lost by a margin of less than 2 per cent votes.

Their cumulative vote share was more than that of the BJP’s 46.11 per cent. The Congress and AAP secured 43.67 per cent and 3.94 per cent votes, respectively.

Earlier in the day, AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh welcomed reports that Gandhi was keen to see a Congress-AAP alliance in Haryana.

Asked about the possibility of an alliance with the AAP, Babaria said: “We are in talks with the AAP, but nothing has been finalised yet. As soon as something is finalised, we will inform you.” “We have to defeat the BJP and not allow votes to be divided,” Babaria said.

For the Haryana Assembly polls, the Indian National Lok Dal has struck an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party. Former Haryana deputy CM Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) has an alliance with Lok Sabha MP Chandrashekhar Azad-led Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram). The BJP, which ran a coalition government with the JJP from 2019 to 2024, is set to contest all 90 seats.

Haryana votes on October 5. The counting of votes for Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls is on October 8.