Jaihind AAP-JJP pick for Faridabad

Ananya Panda
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 21

After breakdown of talks with the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), in alliance with the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), on Sunday declared its candidates from three Lok Sabha seats — Faridabad, Ambala and Karnal.

State AAP president Naveen Jaihind is the nominee from Faridabad. He will take on Union Minister and sitting MP Krishan Pal Gurjar and Lalit Nagar of the Congress.

Retired DGP Prithvi Raj was named as AAP’s pick for Ambala. He is pitted against BJP’s sitting MP Rattan Lal Kataria and Congress’ Kumari Selja.

Panipat lawyer Krishan Kumar Aggarwal will contest from Karnal. The BJP has fielded Sanjay Bhatia from the seat this time.

Making the announcement at AAP headquarters, party leader Gopal Rai, joined by JJP president Dushyant Chautala, said AAP would contest the three seats as decided in its alliance with the JJP.

He said AAP and the JJP would hold roadshows, led by AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal and his JJP counterpart Dushyant, for two days.

Both leaders slammed the Congress over the manner in which the political landscape had developed in Delhi and Haryana over the last few days. Rai blamed the grand old party for a failed electoral pact.

Dushyant said the Congress had not been able to decide its candidates in Haryana as it was rattled by the JJP-AAP combine. He said the alliance was the only formidable challenger to the BJP in Haryana.

Rai claimed that the Congress had been weakening opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.

He said all opposition parties had agreed upon forming a united front to oust Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre, but the Congress had decided to go it alone in many states. “The Congress cannot win a single seat in Delhi and is hell bent on dividing votes by defeating AAP,” claimed Rai.

The AAP-JJP combine is yet to finalise its nominees for Sonepat, Gurugram and Kurukshetra and a decision is likely after the Congress announces its nominees.

Yet to name three 

The AAP-JJP combine is likely to finalise its nominees for Sonepat, Kurukshetra and Gurgaon seats soon as the Congress has announced its candidates from these three segments.

Candidates chosen

• Naveen Jaihind (38) hails from Rohtak. He had contested from Rohtak in 2014 and got over 46,000 votes. This time, he is contesting from Faridabad. He has been working with Arvind Kejriwal since 2007. He became a member of the national working committee of AAP when it was formed in 2012.
• Retired DGP Prithvi Raj (62) hails from Yamunanagar. He is a BTech from Kurukshetra. After that he joined the Himachal Pradesh cadre as IPS officer. After retirement, he had been working for the uplift of Dalits. He is contesting from Ambala. The party had polled over 63,000 votes from this seat in 2014.
• Krishan Kumar Aggarwal hails from Panipat and is an advocate by profession. He is contesting from Karnal. He is national vice-president of the Akhil Bharatiya Aggarwal Sammelan. The AAP had secured over 32,000 votes from Karnal in the 2014 elections.