The Swaraj India will contest the upcoming Haryana Assembly polls, projecting the outfit as a viable alternative to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
“We have decided to contest the upcoming Haryana assembly polls,” Swaraj India national president Yogendra Yadav made this announcement while addressing mediapersons here. He was accompanied by party's state unit president Rajeev Godara.
Yadav said the newly floated party had decided not to contest the Lok Sabha elections throughout the country as they wanted to focus on the issues of farmers and unemployed youth.
“We have decided to give one-third seats to women and one-third to the youth. We are going to focus on five issues--agrarian distress, remunerative prices to the farmers, unemployment relief for educated unemployed youth and we want a law which would ensure no liquor vend can be opened unless women of that Gram Sabha approve of it,” he said.
For the unorganised sector workers, better wages and more secure better quality environment will be on top of our agenda, said Yadav, who is a noted political analyst and a former Aam Aadmi Party leader.
The party has been allotted ‘whistle’ as poll symbol by the Election Commission, he informed.
He said Haryana has seen atrocities against Dalits, oppression of women and all kinds of law and order issues and the party wants every citizen to be treated equally.
On contesting the Haryana polls, which are due in October, he said, “We had contested municipal election and put up one or two candidates in Rajasthan, but this is our full state assembly election”.
The Swaraj India will not project any face for the polls, the academician-turned-politician said.
He said, “In this state, the entire politics is centered around caste, Jats versus non-Jats. We stand in resolute opposition of this, we are saying we want to bring all the 36 communities together.”
When asked that his party will be entering the fray at a time when the BJP recently swept all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana and has been making claims that it will win 75 plus assembly seats, Yadav said, “Everyone is saying this is the worst time to get into elections. But we think this is the best time because this is when people are looking for an alternative, a viable alternative which we will provide”.