Haryana Elections: BSP And INLD Reach Seat-Sharing Arrangement But Struggle To Find Candidates

After announcing the alliance for the Haryana assembly elections scheduled for 1 October, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BJP) and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) have reached a seat-sharing arrangement.

Of the 90 seats in the state, INLD will contest 53, while the BSP will contest 37 seats, including all 17 reserved seats for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates as BSP is considered a party of Dalits.

However, the alliance is facing difficulty in finding good candidates because of the declining vote share of both parties in subsequent elections in the state, as per Amar Ujala's report.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the INLD got 1.74 per cent votes and the BSP 1.28 per cent. In the 2019 assembly election, INLD won one seat with 2.44 per cent vote share, while the BSP could not win a single seat with 4.21 per cent vote share.

The alliance is now waiting for the candidate list of major parties like Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), so that those who could not get tickets from these parties, might join the INLD-BSP alliance to contest the election.

Meanwhile, INLD's Abhay Chautala has expressed openness to forming alliances with smaller parties and is holding rallies. Similarly, BSP general secretary Akash Anand is also holding rallies.

BSP is claiming a strong presence in the Chhachhrauli and Jagadhari seats of the Yamuna Nagar district and Asandh seat of Karnal district.

The INLD is hoping to reignite its impact in its old bastions. These include seats in Sirsa, Jind, Kaithal, Kurukshetra, Nuh, Hisar and Bhiwani districts.