The Congress central leadership’s push for a seat-sharing agreement with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the October 5 Haryana Assembly elections has sparked significant internal dissent within the party. The state unit, particularly the faction led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda, is strongly opposing the proposal.
Sources within the party told The Indian Express that the “intense disagreement” over the seat-sharing plan led Hooda, the Haryana Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader and former chief minister, to walk out of a party meeting. The conflict has been intensified by the All India Congress Committee’s (AICC) decision to withhold tickets from some sitting MLAs, a move that has further alienated the Hooda camp. Currently, Congress holds 28 seats in the 90-member Haryana Assembly.
Earlier, the Congress Central Election Committee (CEC), headed by party president Mallikarjun Kharge, had cleared most of the sitting MLAs for the polls. However, The Indian Express reported that some of these names have now been “put on hold.” This includes Dharam Singh Chhoker from Samalkha, Surender Panwar from Sonipat, and Rao Dan Singh from Mahendragarh, all of whom are close to Hooda and are facing investigations by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The delay in releasing the candidate list is attributed to the AICC’s reevaluation of these names. The party has formed a sub-committee to explore a seat-sharing deal with AAP and resolve candidate disputes in about two dozen seats lacking internal consensus.
Sources also indicate that while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is supportive of the seat-sharing pact to promote unity within the INDIA bloc, several senior state leaders, including Hooda, are opposed. The AICC is reportedly considering a similar alliance with AAP in Delhi and is negotiating how many seats to offer.
The AAP has requested 10 seats, but Congress is hesitant to offer more than four to five, according to the sources.