The AAP on Tuesday declared its second and third lists of candidates for the Haryana Assembly polls after alliance talks with the Congress appeared to have reached an impasse.

The AAP has declared candidates for 40 seats so far, including 20 for which the Congress had already named candidates.

Haryana AAP president Sushil Gupta said: “Nominations will be filed for all 90 seats…. The BJP is out of the race. This election is a direct contest between the AAP and the Congress because other parties are not visible this time.”

Without naming the AAP, the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee posted on X: “The wizards from the Centre, who are champions of cutting and dividing, are trying to use parties as well as Independents to make inroads in Haryana this time. But the people of Haryana are alert against counterfeits, They can see only one mark (open hand emoji — the Congress symbol)…”

Those named by the AAP on Tuesday include Chhatarpal Singh, a former minister in the state who just quit the BJP. Singh, as a Congress candidate, had defeated former deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal in the 1991 Haryana Assembly polls. He has been fielded by the AAP from Barwala.

Sources confirmed that alliance talks were stalled over the AAP’s insistence on certain seats, including Jind and Pehowa.

The AAP had initially announced it would go alone but later began talks with the Congress, demanding 10 seats as part of the INDIA bloc under which it had
unsuccessfully contested one seat in Haryana for the Lok Sabha polls.