Cong will contest Haryana Assembly polls on its own: Bhupinder Singh Hooda

CHANDIGARH: Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today said there will be a direct fight between Congress and BJP in the state Assembly polls due in October and his party will contest on its own.

"The Congress will contest the Assembly elections on all the 90 seats," he said while addressing a news conference here after chairing a meeting of the state Cabinet.

Saying the main Opposition and former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala-led INLD will be wiped out in the upcoming Assembly polls, Hooda asserted that, "After the upcoming Assembly polls, INLD's status will become negligible ... Our fight in the coming Assembly polls will be with the BJP."

When asked that INLD had won two out of a total of 10 Lok Sabha seats from Haryana despite 'Modi wave', Hooda said "the INLD got two seats in the last Lok Sabha elections because the seats on which they contested there was no BJP candidate (Hisar and Sirsa)."

Moreover, during their poll campaign, they misled the people by saying that they would support BJP's Narendra Modi.

On owning moral responsibility after Lok Sabha poll debacle in Haryana, Hooda said under his leadership the party had also won nine seats in Lok Sabha polls in 2009.

He pointed out that during the Lok Sabha elections, an atmosphere was created which made people vote for an individual, not for any policies or programmes of the BJP.