Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh welcomed the reported statement of Leader of Opposition and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi regarding an alliance for Haryana polls stating that the party's Haryana in-charge will take a final call on it after informing AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal.
"We welcome it. Our priority is to defeat the BJP... Our Haryana in-charge Sandeep Pathak and Sushil Gupta will discuss it and take a final decision and inform Arvind Kejriwal about it and a decision will be taken accordingly...," said Sanjay Singh.
According to sources, Rahul has sought opinions of Haryana Congress leaders over the possibility of an alliance with AAP for the forthcoming Haryana Assembly elections during the party's Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting held in the national capital on Monday.
According to sources, during the CEC meeting Rahul Gandhi asked about the possibilities of contesting elections as INDIA alliance and said that the party should make efforts to ensure that the votes of the alliance are undivided.
However, Arvind Kejriwal had earlier stated that his party would contest the Haryana Assembly polls in all 90 seats on its own strength.
Responding to Rahul Gandhi's statement, former Haryana CM and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that they can only give three to four seats to the AAP, which was demanding more and thus it is difficult to form an alliance, said sources.
The sources also stated that Hooda will be fielded as candidate from Garhi Sampla Kiloi constituency while state president Udaybhan will be fielded from Hodal constituency.
The party had no discussions on the possible candidatures of Vinesh Phogat, and Rajya Sabha MPs Kumari Selja and Randeep Surjewala during the meeting.
The Congress in the CEC meeting discussed about the candidatures of all 90 seats of the state and finalised the names on 49 seats, however, they are yet to finalise the names for remaining 41 seats. AICC in-charge of Haryana Deepak Babaria said that the Congress party will soon release the list of candidates.
"Discussion on 49 seats was taken up and 34 of them have been declared. 15 seats have been sent for review. Out of the 34 cleared seats, 22 are MLA seats. The pending names will be cleared in the next two to three days. We will clarify about Vinesh Phogat also. The list would also be out within two days."
(with ANI inputs)
