AAP not fighting Haryana polls, Yogendra Yadav unhappy with the decision

NEW DELHI | CHANDIGARH: The Aam Aadmi Party has all but decided against contesting assembly elections in Haryana. The party’s state unit passed a resolution on Tuesday stating that it was not in favour of fighting polls without the approval of the national leadership, referring to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s disinclination towards the idea.

Kejriwal had publicly said on two different occasions that he was not keen on fighting Haryana and Maharashtra state elections and that he wanted to focus on Delhi first. AAP Haryana unit’s resolution would now be discussed by the party’s national executive, although it’s highly unlikely that its decision would be any different from the state unit’s.

However, AAP leader Yogendra Yadav is not happy with the development. In January this year, Yadav had announced that AAP would contest all seats in the Haryana polls. “I am very disappointed with this turn of events because as a political party once we have contested an election in a state we can’t possibly vacate ground after that. We have five lakh voters in Haryana. What are we going to tell them?” Yadav told ET. He was present during meeting of the Haryana State Executive in Karnal which passed the resolution. Yadav pointed out that the Haryana state unit had decided against contesting elections despite “95% of the volunteers” favouring it.