The Aam Aadmi Party’s project to expand into Haryana, the home state of party chief Arvind Kejriwal, appears to have failed to take off once again with leads suggesting that it is on course to draw a blank.

If the trends hold, it will be a huge setback for the AAP, especially since it comes months ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections and because it has sparked discussions on whether the party made a strategic mistake by deciding not to ally with the Congress. 

While local leaders of the Congress were not in favour of an alliance with the AAP, senior leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi was learnt to have pushed for it, arguing that it would prevent a division of votes and give the opposition its best chance of defeating the BJP.

The senior leadership of the AAP was also learnt to have been keen on a tie-up but reports had said talks had hit a roadblock because the party wanted to contest at least 10 of Haryana’s 90 Assembly seats while the Congress was in no mood to concede more than seven.

The collapse of alliance discussions was expected to hurt the Congress in seven seats – Kalayat, Rania, Pehwa, Barwala, Jind, Bhiwani and Gurugram – but only the results will show how much of an impact the AAP managed to have. 

One of the key pitches by the party had been that it has popular governments in Delhi and Punjab, both of which are Haryana’s neighbours. Borrowing one of the BJP’s favourite phrases and one-upping it, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha had said that this would enable the party to bring a “triple engine” of development in the state. 

Bad Timing?

The Haryana results have come at a time when Arvind Kejriwal has given up the Delhi chief minister’s chair and, banking on his popularity, said that he will take up the post only if the AAP forms a government after the Assembly elections next year. 

The AAP chief had been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate and then by the CBI for his alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor policy ‘scam’. Two days after being granted bail by the Supreme Court last month, he had sprung a surprise by announcing his resignation and saying that while he has got justice from legal courts, he would now seek justice from the “people’s court”. 

“I will sit on the Chief Minister’s chair only after the order of the people… I want to ask the people of Delhi, is Kejriwal innocent or guilty? If I have worked, vote for me,” he had said. 

While the Haryana elections may not have a direct bearing on Delhi, if the party fails to win even one seat after contesting nearly all of them, it is expected to dent the morale of workers. The AAP had also lost the lone seat of Kurukshetra that it had contested from Haryana in the Lok Sabha polls as well as all four constituencies it had fought in Delhi.

Chandigarh:

The Haryana unit of the ruling BJP has written to the Election Commission requesting a brief postponement of the assembly poll slated for October 1, citing holidays before and after the election date that could lead to a lower voter turnout.

While the opposition Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) slammed the BJP, claiming that the ruling party was panicking as it could sense defeat, Abhay Chautala’s INLD too sought the deferment of polls.

A Haryana BJP leader on Saturday said the letter was sent by the party’s state unit chief Mohan Lal Badoli to the poll panel.

Haryana’s Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Agarwal confirmed that the commission received a copy of the communication on Friday over email.

“We have received the communication from state BJP and forwarded it to the Election Commission,” Agarwal told PTI.

Varinder Garg, a member of the BJP’s state election management committee, said, “We have reasoned that the Assembly election date of October 1 (Tuesday) is preceded by a weekend and followed by more holidays which might hit the voting percentage as people tend to go on vacation on long weekends.” Varinder Garg said September 28-29 are Saturday and Sunday while October 1 is a poll holiday. It is followed by more holidays as Gandhi Jayanti falls on October 2 and Maharaja Agrasen Jayanti on October 3, he said.

“We have written to the Election Commission in this regard. For a better turnout, any new date once the string of holidays is over should be fine,” Varinder Garg told PTI over the phone.

By taking a day’s leave on September 30, people will have six holidays. Due to this long weekend, there is a strong possibility that several families might go on a vacation and give voting a miss, Mohan Lal Badoli said in his letter to the EC.

If it happens, the voting percentage would reduce drastically, he added.

Mohan Lal Badoli also said that on ‘Asoj Amavasya’ on October 2, several members of the Bishnoi community of Haryana will leave for Nokha tehsil of Bikaner in Rajasthan to participate in an annual fair held on the occasion.

This too can affect the voting percentage, he further said.

Mohan Lal Badoli wrote that it has been the continuous effort of the EC to ensure that the maximum number of people exercise their franchise to strengthen democracy.

Therefore, it would be appropriate that the date fixed for voting for the Haryana Assembly election be changed. While determining a fresh date for the election, it should be made certain that there is no holiday the previous or the following day, he wrote.

We believe that if the EC does this, more and more voters will be able to participate in the election, he wrote.

Mohan Lal Badoli, in his letter, also mentioned that in the past the date of polling has been changed by the EC. For example, the date declared for voting in Punjab Assembly elections — February 14, 2022 — was changed to February 20, 2022, due to Sant Ravidas Jayanti on February 16.

In 2022, the then Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, the BJP and its allies, and the BSP had urged the poll panel to postpone the date of voting as lakhs of followers of Guru Ravidas travel to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh to celebrate the day.

However, Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the BJP’s stand shows that it has already accepted defeat.

It has been more than a week since the Election Commission announced the poll date. The BJP wants the polls to be deferred as it has accepted defeat, Bhupinder Hooda, who is Leader of the Opposition and former chief minister of Haryana, said.

Polls should be held according to the date fixed by the EC… People of Haryana don’t want to see the BJP government in power even for a day, he said.

Bhupinder Hooda’s son and Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda while referring to Mohan Lal Badoli’s letter, said, “It shows how scared the BJP is of the elections”.

The BJP is staring at defeat and is therefore coming up with such childish arguments. It has no issues, work or achievements to show to the people and no candidates to distribute the tickets. This is why the BJP is conspiring to postpone the elections by giving an excuse for holidays, Deepender Hooda said in Hindi on X.

The voters of Haryana are aware. They will not go anywhere for a holiday, but will come to the polling booth in large numbers to vote out the BJP government, he added.

The AAP’s Haryana unit said even before the elections took place, the ruling BJP had started looking for excuses as it could sense its impending defeat in the election.

In a post on X, the AAP said if the BJP had done work in the state, it would not have been seeking postponement of polls. This time the BJP’s defeat is certain, it said.

Meanwhile, Indian National Lok Dal’s (INLD) Chautala said the polling date should be postponed by one or two weeks.

Since people usually go on holidays on long weekends, it will adversely affect the voting percentage which is likely to decrease by 15 to 20 per cent, Chautala said.

The EC on August 16 announced that assembly polls in Haryana would be held in a single phase on October 1 and the results would be declared on October 4.

The BJP is eyeing a third consecutive term while the Congress is looking to wrest power from the ruling outfit.

The tenure of the current Haryana Vidhan Sabha ends on November 3.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)