The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday announced candidates in 20 of the 90 Assembly seats in Haryana three days before the nominations close, amid inconclusive alliance talks with the Congress.

In half of the seats for which the AAP has named nominees, the Congress has already fielded candidates. The Congress has brought out a list of 40 candidates.

An AAP source, however, told The Telegraph: “These (AAP) are candidates who have been loyal to the party for a long time and if required they can be requested to withdraw their nominations as well. The Congress has issued two lists already and dissent within the AAP against an alliance has also been expressed on social media. We are bargaining hard so that we can get the seats where we are likely to do well as we do not have many strong candidates or vast resources.”

Among the candidates announced are AAP Haryana senior vice-president and former journalist Anurag Dhanda from Kalayat. AAP Haryana president Sushil Gupta told reporters: “We have released the first list to overthrow the corrupt BJP government and soon you will get the second list. Now, there is very little time left for the elections. We sincerely waited for the alliance. Our organisation is strong in every Assembly and that strong organisation wanted us to contest the polls. We showed our patience and after that, released our list.”

The Congress has not named candidates for the Pehowa and Jind constituencies, which the AAP is reportedly keen to contest. An AAP source said that if the alliance works out, Gupta may also contest. Although the AAP had initially said it would contest all the seats on its own, it later started talks with the Congress for 10 seats. The Congress was reportedly not in favour of giving half as many.

On Sunday, AAP Delhi MLA Somnath Bharti, who unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls in Delhi as part of the INDIA bloc, posted on X: “While my national convenor @ArvindKejriwalji did roadshows for all the three Congress candidates, senior leaders and cabinet ministers of AAP campaigned for all three Congress candidates but AAP candidates especially myself were not supported at all especially by Congress Delhi and local leaders.”