Naveen Jaihind is AAP CM face for Haryana
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Haryana state president Naveen Jaihind will be the party’s chief ministerial face in the state assembly elections slated for October 2019. The announcement was made by state executive committee member and party’s media in-charge Sudhir Yadav on Tuesday.
Yadav also ruled out the possibility of forging an alliance with the Congress.
“Pandit Naveen Jaihind will be the party’s chief ministerial face in the (state) elections. Our leaders have made it very clear that there will be no alliance with the Congress. We will only have an alliance with the people of Haryana,” Yadav said during a media interaction in Gurugram.
Jaihind, who hails from Rohtak and is married to chief of Delhi Commission for Women Swati Maliwal, could not be reached for a comment as he is travelling.
Reacting to the development, AAP state spokesperson Kuldeep Kadyan said, “There is no conflict within the party over Jaihind’s projection as the chief ministerial face. He has been associated with Arvind Kejriwal from the beginning of the India Against Corruption movement. During the anticorruption movement, he handled major states in north India. He has had a long working partnership with Kejriwal. They share a good rapport.”
Though party chief Arvind Kejriwal has announced that AAP will contest the Haryana assembly elections, the party is yet to make a formal announcement on the number of seats it plans to contest.
During the launch of Mission2019 in Kurukshetra last month, Kejriwal had said AAP would be a contender in the polls and launched the ‘Haryana Jodo Abhiyan’, through which the party aims to reach out to 2,000 villages of the state.
Stating that the BJP-led state government has failed on all fronts, Yadav said people in Gurugram were being deprived of basic amenities such as water and electricity.
“Gurugram is home to top MNCs and generates high tax revenue, yet no funds are being utilised for the welfare of the common people. Not a penny is being spent. Newly inaugurated flyovers are being shut for repair every other month, railway stations and bus stops are in shambles,” Yadav said, adding that the Metro expansion plan was stuck.
Responding to the allegations, state BJP spokesperson Raman Malik said, “The eco-green campaign hasn’t yielded the desired result, but this was partly due to the lack of cooperation from RWAs.”