Congress open to tie-up with like-minded parties: Hooda

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 12

The Congress is open to alliance with other political parties in Haryana for the upcoming Assembly poll, but Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) or its offshoot Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) are not among the options.

Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today said that the party was not averse to an alliance with any like-minded party for the Assembly elections due in October to defeat the BJP.

The BJP had recently routed the Congress in a clean sweep in the Lok Sabha poll by winning 10 out of 10 seats in the state.

Talking to The Tribune at his official residence in Sector 3 in Chandigarh today, Hooda clarified that though it is premature to talk on this issue now — because the party is not in talks with any other political party so far — the Congress is open to alliance with like-minded parties.

He said since the ideology of the INLD as well as its offshoot JJP do not match with that of the Congress, there was no question of any alliance with these two parties.

Asked to explain the political inactivity in the Congress even when the Assembly poll is less than 3 months away, Hooda said that the Congress was ready for the poll and the party was sure of dislodging the BJP from power in the state.

“We are merely waiting for the issue of the national president of the Congress to be resolved in a couple of days because the election panels for the state are cleared by the central leadership alone. We have been raising the people’s issues for the past five years and we are sure that the people will rally behind the Congress the moment our campaign begins,” he said.

He refused to comment on the election panel (now named as election group) constituted by state Congress president Ashok Tanwar and said that AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad has already said that the panel is invalid. “In the Lok Sabha elections, people voted for the BJP in the name of Narendra Modi. But the people of Haryana are fed up with the BJP government led by the Chief Minister. They are waiting for an opportunity to dislodge the government,” he said.

Hooda claimed that when he was at the helm of affairs at the state, 100-yard plots had been given to 3.82 lakh poor families in the state, but during the BJP’s government, not a single residential plot has been given.

He said that the BJP had promised implementation of the Swaminathan report for farmers, but the party backed out after coming to power.

Accusing the government of not caring for farmers, the former CM said that during the Congress regime, no taxes were levied on fertilisers, pesticides and tractor parts, but now, all these commodities are taxed under the GST regime. He said that the farmers need cottonseed cakes and cottonseeds for their mulching animals, but both the commodities had become costlier during the BJP rule.

Hooda said that the upcoming elections would see a direct fight between the Congress and BJP and his party would eventually form the government.