Ahead of the Assembly polls in Haryana scheduled later this year, a bunch of political parties in the State are in talks to cobble together the Third Front as an alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
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Spearheading the efforts for the Front, Meham Independent MLA Balraj Kundu, who had floated the Haryana Jansewak Party last year, told The Hindu over the phone that he was in talks with several “like-minded” parties, including the Indian National Lok Dal, Azad Samaj Party and Aam Aadmi Party, to bring them on one platform. Mr. Kundu said the announcement for the Front was likely in a week’s time.
He said the coalition aimed to work against the dynasty politics of the two parties and to bring ordinary people connected to the masses into politics. Mr. Kundu said he was holding separate discussions with the leaders of these parties to ascertain their views on the possible alliance and their compatibility with each other. The 53-year-old said that his party would prefer to forge an alliance with Chandra Shekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party in case the larger alliance did not work out.
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Meanwhile, the Indian National Lok Dal secretary general Abhay Singh Chautala called upon Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati at her residence on Saturday and the two parties have agreed, in principle, to forge an alliance for the upcoming Assembly polls. Mr. Chautala said a formal announcement in this connection would be made on July 11. He also confirmed the efforts to bring together various political parties in the State but refused to divulge further details.
The BSP had forged an alliance with the INLD in April 2018 for the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls but unilaterally called it off 10 months later, blaming it on the split in the Chautala family. The BSP then allied with Rajkumar Saini’s Loktantra Suraksha Party.
Highly placed sources in AAP, however, said the party was unlikely to be part of any alliance involving the Chautalas.