Talks between AAP, Congress for Haryana Alliance fail over seat-sharing
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress have reportedly failed to reach an agreement on seat-sharing for the upcoming Haryana Assembly election. According to sources, AAP, led by Arvind Kejriwal, was seeking to contest at least 10 seats, while Congress was only willing to offer three.
The two parties, both part of the opposition INDIA bloc at the national level, had been considering a pre-poll alliance for Haryana. Discussions were held over the past few days, with Congress leader Deepak Babaria stating that the alliance would only proceed if it created a "win-win" situation for both sides.
AAP was particularly interested in securing the Kalayat seat and at least one seat in the Kurukshetra region. However, with no breakthrough in the talks, Haryana AAP chief Sushil Gupta announced that the party would release its full list of candidates if the Congress did not make a decision by Monday evening.
Following this, AAP released its first list of 20 candidates for the October 5 Haryana Assembly polls. Among the candidates, Haryana unit vice president Anurag Dhanda has been fielded from Kalayat, Indu Sharma from Bhiwani, Vikas Nehra from Meham, and Bijender Hooda from Rohtak.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
