NEW DELHI: In the Congress’s Central Election Committee (CEC) held to discuss ticket allocation for the forthcoming Haryana Assembly elections, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi discussed about the possibilities of contesting elections as INDIA bloc, said sources. The meeting took place at the Congress Headquarters in New Delhi 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. Responding to Rahul Gandhi’s statement, former Haryana CM and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that they can only give 3-4 seats to AAP however they are demanding more than it, so it is difficult to form an alliance, said sources. Sources added that Bhupinder 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 on 49 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 2-3 days. We will clarify about Vinesh Phogat also. The list would also be out within two days.” Earlier, a Congress Central Election Committee meeting was held at AICC to select the candidates for the Haryana Assembly Polls. The meeting was chaired by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, LoP in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi was present in the meeting along with other members of CEC. The elections in Haryana will be held in a single phase on October 5, and the counting of votes will happen on October 8. Notably, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on August 31, revised the polling day for Haryana Assembly polls from October 1 to October 5, this year, as well as moved the counting of votes for both Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana assemblies from October 4 to October 8.
