Chandigarh, Sep 1 (IANS): The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) on Sunday announced seven candidates as it released its first list of nominees for the October 5 Assembly election in Haryana.

Arjun Singh Chautala, son of sitting legislator Abhay Chautala and grandson of former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, will contest from the Rania Assembly constituency, while the party’s state chief Rampal Majra has been fielded from Kalayat.

The INLD has fielded slain party state chief Nafe Singh Rathi’s wife Sheela Rathi from Bahadurgarh. Two-time legislator Rathi was shot dead along with a party worker by assailants in Jhajjar's Bahadurgarh town in February.

After a feud within the INLD, five-time Chief Minister Chautala’s grandson Dushyant Chautala split the party vertically in 2018 and formed the JJP. In Haryana, both regional outfits -- the INLD and its fledging JJP -- bank heavily on their traditional Jat vote, comprising 28 per cent of the state’s population. This time, they face a tough contest from the Congress, led by prominent Jat leader and two-time Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

However, the BJP is banking on non-Jat votes. The INLD is banking more on its patriarch O.P. Chautala, who was released from Tihar Jail on July 2, 2021, after serving nine-and-a-half years of a 10-year prison sentence. It has an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

As per the alliance, the INLD will contest 53 seats, while the BSP will contest 37 seats.

In the current Assembly, the BSP has no legislator and the INLD has a lone MLA in Abhay Chautala. The BSP has already announced four candidates. The party has fielded Darshan Lal Khera from Jagadhari seat of Yamunanagar, Gopal Singh Rana from Assandh of Karnal and Thakur Atar Lal from Ateli of Mahendragarh. From Naraingarh, the home constituency of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, the BSP has fielded Harbilas Singh, who switched over from the JJP.

JJP’s Dushyant Chautala has announced that candidates for most of the seats would be announced after the meeting on September 2. He said the alliance between JJP and Chandra Shekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) would take Haryana on the path of progress and both parties will fight for the poor, farmers and labourers together. Eyeing to woo the Dalit voters who constitute 21 per cent of the state's population, the JJP and the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) last week formed a pre-poll alliance for the 90 Assembly seats in Haryana. Out of the 90 seats, JJP will contest 70 seats while the Azad Samaj Party will field candidates in the remaining 20 seats.