Haryana polls: Congress unveils 5 new candidates in fourth list, finalises 86 total

The Congress Thursday, 12 September released its fourth list of five candidates for the Haryana assembly polls. It fielded a journalist, who recently joined the party, from Rania, taking the total number of candidates declared so far to 86.

This list came just a few hours after the Congress declared its third list of 40 candidates, fielding party MP Randeep Surjewala's son Aditya Surjewala from Kaithal.

The party fielded Parimal Pari from Ambala Cantt, its youth leader Sachin Kundu from Panipat Rural, Satbir Dublain from the Narwana (SC) seat and Rohit Nagar from Tigaon.

Journalist Sarva Mitra Kamboj recently joined the Congress in the presence of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the party's state unit chief Udai Bhan. He has been fielded from the Rania seat in Sirsa district.

Energy and Jails Minister Ranjit Chautala, who recently quit the BJP after being denied a ticket from Rania, represented the seat when he was an Independent MLA. He had quit the membership of the Vidhan Sabha before joining the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls to contest from Hisar, in which he was unsuccessful.

The Congress is yet to name candidates for four seats, including Uklana.

The party had engaged in seat-sharing talks with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the Haryana polls which hit a deadlock following hard bargaining from both sides. Since then, AAP has released multiple lists of its candidates.

Some Congress leaders had expressed reservations over a tie-up with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party.

Thursday, 12 September is the last day of filing of nominations.

The Congress last week declared 32 candidates for the polls, fielding former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda from Garhi Sampla-Kiloi, state unit chief Udai Bhan from Hodal and wrestler Vinesh Phogat from Julana.

The party had first released a list of 31 candidates and a little later, said in a statement that the CEC had approved the candidature of Balbir Singh from the Israna (SC) constituency.

It declared nine candidates on Sunday. The party has renominated all its 28 MLAs. Besides Hooda, Bhan, and Phogat, the Congress has also fielded Mewa Singh from Ladwa to take on chief minister Nayab Singh Saini.

Assembly elections in Haryana will be held on 5 October and the counting of votes will be undertaken on 8 October.