In Haryana, AAP to field 3 candidates, JJP gets 7 seats

At a joing press conference with JJP chief Dushyant, AAP Delhi unit head Gopal Rai said AAP was no longer in talks with Congress as the grand old party “is not interested”. However, he did not give a direct response on whether the decision to go it alone in Delhi was final or not.

AAP’s West Delhi candidate Balbir Singh Jakhar during a road show before filing his nomination Thursday. (Express Photo: Renuka Puri)

After rejecting Congress’s offer for an alliance in Delhi alone, AAP Thursday announced that it will field three candidates in Haryana from the Faridabad, Ambala and Karnal seats. The remaining seven seats will be contested by the Jannayak Janata Party, founded by former Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leaders, Dushyant and Digvijay Chautala. AAP and JJP announced an alliance in Haryana last week.

At a joing press conference with JJP chief Dushyant, AAP Delhi unit head Gopal Rai said AAP was no longer in talks with Congress as the grand old party “is not interested”. However, he did not give a direct response on whether the decision to go it alone in Delhi was final or not.

“Yesterday (Wednesday), we tried till the last moment. But the Congress doesn’t seem to understand how important it is to defeat the BJP. We are strong in Delhi anyway, now even in Haryana… Just because the Congress has left the field doesn’t mean we will let the BJP win,” Rai said.

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Chautala said that he will contest from Hisar. Rai said AAP will declare its candidate by Friday evening.

In March, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had made a public appeal to Congress president Rahul Gandhi to clear an AAP-Congress-JJP tie-up in Haryana, which he said was imperative to defeat the BJP in all 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Congress, however, is ready to form an alliance only in Delhi.
Jakhar’s nomination ‘incomplete’

AAP candidate from West Delhi, Balbir Singh Jakhar became the first one to file his nomination on Thursday. The District Election Officer (West) Azimul Haque, however, issued a notice to him for submitting an incomplete affidavit. Jakhar, however, said the error was due to the affidavit’s format. “We downloaded the affidavit from EC’s website, but there was some issue with the format. The columns were not aligned. I will file a revised affidavit on April 22,” he said.

Jakhar, an advocate, has declared movable and immovable assets worth over Rs 3.28 crore and shown an income of Rs 9,78,458 in his I-T returns filed last year. His wife Anju Jakhar, a government servant, has shown an income of Rs 15,23,293 during the same period, as per the affidavit.