The Congress stuck to its plans for the Haryana Assembly polls by not fielding any of its MPs, despite some of them harbouring such aspirations, but assuaged ambitions by giving the nod to sons and relatives of several of the party's top leaders in the state.
After hectic parleys and much back and forth with the INDIA bloc allies, the Congress also ended up going into the polls with its original plan of largely going solo. The party has left one seat for the CPI(M) but its talks with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Samajwadi Party hit a deadlock over the ambitions of the junior allies and the Congress' assessment of its strength on the ground in Haryana.
The party raced against time to name the candidates for the Haryana Assembly polls with its final list coming out just hours before the deadline for filing nominations for the polls to the 90-member Assembly.
The Congress on Thursday announced the names of eight more candidates for the Haryana Assembly polls, while leaving one seat of Bhiwani for the CPI(M), as it accounted for all 90 seats in the state.
The Congress' candidates lists saw the 'son rise' of many political families in the state.
While party MP Randeep Surjewala's son Aditya Surjewala has been fielded from Kaithal, former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal's grandson and cricket administrator-turned-politician Anirudh Chaudhary has been fielded from Tosham.
Rewari MLA Chiranjeev Rao, who has been fielded again, is the son of senior party leader and former state minister Ajay Singh Yadav.
Brijendra Singh, the son of former Union minister Birender Singh, is set to take on former deputy chief minister and sitting JJP MLA Dushyant Chautala from Uchana Kalan in Jind district. Brijendra Singh is a former MP.
Chander Mohan, the elder son of former Haryana chief minister Bhajanlal Bishnoi, has been fielded by the Congress from Panchkula. Also, Hisar MP Jai Prakash's son Vikas has been fielded from Kalayat.
However, the party dashed the hopes of those MPs harbouring a desire to contest the polls.
Congress MP Kumari Selja had expressed her desire to contest the assembly elections and return to state politics. There were reports that Randeep Surjewala was also interested in contesting the polls.
The Congress, however, had made its intentions clear early, declaring that no MP would be given permission to contest.
AICC in-charge of the state Deepak Babaria had categorically stated last month that Congress MPs from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will not be given permission by the party to contest the Haryana Assembly polls.
Later, he had also said if the MPs are interested in becoming the chief ministerial face they "can throw their hat in the ring" post the polls if they have the support of the newly-elected MLAs.
With the candidates announced for all seats, the Congress ended up having a tie-up with the CPI (M) alone.
The party had engaged in seat-sharing talks with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the Haryana polls which hit a deadlock following hard bargaining from both sides. Some Congress leaders had expressed reservations over a tie-up with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party.
While Rahul Gandhi is understood to have nudged the state unit to explore possibilities for a tie-up with the AAP, sources said former chief minister Bhupinder Hooda and his supporters were against giving much importance to the AAP and are confident of a good performance by the party going solo.
Mr Hooda, the leader of opposition in the outgoing assembly, is contesting from Garhi Sampla-Kiloi. His son Deepender Singh Hooda is an MP from Rohtak and is one of the leading faces of the party's campaign along with other senior leaders.
Among the other prominent candidates, state unit chief Udai Bhan is contesting from Hodal and wrestler Vinesh Phogat from Julana.
Voting for the 90-member Haryana Assembly is scheduled for October 5 and the counting of votes will be undertaken on October 8.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
