Wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia likely to contest Haryana assembly polls on Congress ticket

NEW DELHI: Wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia are likely to contest the Haryana Assembly elections on Congress ticket and might resign from their official posts according to sources.

On Wednesday, Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia met Lok Sabha LoP and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in the national capital. The wrestlers will also meet Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal today.

Polling in Haryana will be held on October 5. Votes will be counted on October 8. At the Paris Olympics, Vinesh was disqualified from the 50 kg gold medal bout after she was found to be 100 gms overweight.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) also dismissed her petition to be awarded a joint silver. She announced her retirement from wrestling on August 8, a day after her disqualification.

Since her return home there has been intense speculation that she would enter active politics like her cousin Babita who is a BJP MLA.

Meanwhile, Congress and AAP have started seat-sharing talks for the Haryana assembly polls which could lead to the continuation of the alliance they had in the state during the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year.

The Congress has formed a three-member committee, which includes the party's screening committee chairman for the state Ajay Maken, AICC in-charge of Haryana Deepak Babaria and former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, for seat-sharing talks with Aam Aadmi Party and Samajwadi Party.

Party general secretary KC Venugopal will oversee the work of the committee. Congress sources said that the party is willing to give 3-5 seats to AAP and one to the Samajwadi Party in Haryana which has a 90-member assembly.

They said the discussions with AAP follow the suggestion of party leader Rahul Gandhi, who is the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha.

The sources said that during the Congress Central Election Committee meeting, Rahul Gandhi discussed the possibilities of contesting elections as INDIA bloc and said that the party should make efforts to ensure that the votes of the alliance are not divided.

AAP MP Sanjay Singh later welcomed the suggestion and said that final decision will be taken after consultations with party chief Arvind Kejriwal. "We welcome it.

Our priority is to defeat the BJP. Our Haryana in-charge Sandeep Pathak and Sushil Gupta will discuss it and take a final decision and inform Arvind Kejriwal about it and a decision will be taken accordingly," Sanjay Singh said.