‘Will opt for alliance if we get 4 seats’

AMBALA: The Shiromani Akal Dal (SAD) will be contesting all 10 Lok Sabha and 90 assembly seats in Haryana alone if it cannot find the right partner, said its state president on Friday.

SAD Haryana president Sharanjit Singh Sotha said they might enter into an alliance with like-minded parties, but would not tie up with the Congress or the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). “We will hold a rally in February,” he said. “Except these two parties, if any party offers four Lok Sabha seats of Ambala, Kurukshetra, Karnal and Sirsa to us, we are ready for an alliance. We want 36 seats from our alliance partner for the state assembly elections. Else, we will contest alone,” he said.

He said SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal would kick off campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls by holding a rally at New Grain Market in Ambala in the beginning of February.

Sotha went on to attack the BJP government in Haryana, even though it is an ally in Haryana and Centre. “The ruling government has failed on promises it made to minorities. So, we have decided to contest from Haryana,” he said. On the INLD, he said, “Our previous alliance partners had not given respectable number of seats to us in previous polls.”