Will they, won’t they? A couple of months after almost ruling out any tie-up for the Assembly elections, the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are again involved in a pre-election dance, circling each other as they attempt to stitch together an alliance for the Haryana Assembly elections. As Jatin Anand and Mallica Joshi report, the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP wants to contest mainly some of the seats bordering Delhi and Punjab and want nine, whereas the Congress is willing to concede between five and seven. There were two rounds of talks between AAP MP Raghav Chadha and Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal on Tuesday and more clarity is expected on Wednesday. How former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who for all intents and purposes is the person running the party there, responds will be among the things to watch out for. In context: An alliance between the two parties makes sense, in terms of the electoral math. In the recent Lok Sabha elections in Haryana, which has 10 parliamentary constituencies, the Congress wrested five seats from the BJP as the two parties shared the honours by winning five seats each. An analysis of the Assembly segment-wise results shows that the Congress and the BJP were neck-and-neck, with the latter taking the lead in 44 of Haryana’s 90 Assembly constituencies and the Congress in 42. But add AAP to the equation and the INDIA alliance edges ahead in 46 seats, just touching the magic number. However, rarely is politics as straightforward. As Jatin and Mallica write, the Congress high command is keen on continuing the partnership that existed during the Lok Sabha polls and the resistance is most likely to come from the state unit that is Hooda’s grip. The former CM and his camp are confident of a win and, like in Punjab and Delhi, are likely to push back against any understanding with the AAP, which does not have much pan-Haryana organisational presence. Last month, Hooda was the guest at The Indian Express’s Idea Exchangeevent. When asked what he would do if the high command decided to give the AAP a few seats, Hooda said, “At the national level, we have an alliance with the AAP, SP and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). But there’s no alliance at the state level. There has been no discussion on that.” Will BJP or Congress release candidate lists? There is a week and a day to go for the nomination window to close in Haryana. Though that is a lot of time in politics, the fact that none of the major parties have yet announced their candidates shows how cagey they are, unwilling to put a foot wrong. The Congress was initially expected to release its list by Wednesday but that may get pushed back a little because of the ongoing talks with the AAP. In party circles, there is speculation about the Congress balancing tickets for Jats, the most dominant group in Haryana, with those of relatively under-represented groups in Haryana such as Ahirs and Vaishyas. The BJP, too, has been struggling to get its equations right in the poll-bound state and there is a likelihood of the party, too, releasing its first list of candidates during the day. One of the reasons why the BJP may have been holding onto its list is that it wants to see who the Congress fields before deciding its line-up, possibly because several within its ranks may be waiting to jump ship. A central BJP leader told The Indian Express as much, claiming that the hold-up was a “strategic decision”. Recommended reading: Why BJP finds itself on unsure footing in Haryana Also happening today: • The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, will kickstart the Congress’s campaign for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections. Gandhi will address two public rallies in the districts of Ramban and Anantnag. • Union Home Minister Amit Shah will attend an event in Delhi where a Memorandum of Settlement will be signed between the Union and Tripura governments and Tripura-based insurgent groups National Liberation Front of Tripura and All Tripura Tiger Force, • The Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s Ward Committee polls will be held on Wednesday after Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena, late on Tuesday night, directed the MCD Commissioner to notify the appointment of Deputy Commissioners as presiding officers for the elections.
