Chandigarh, Apr 22 (PTI) Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Monday claimed the BJP did not have enough candidates of its own for the 10 parliamentary seats in Haryana and people crossing over from the opposition parties were being handed over tickets.

He said the Congress has a list of strong contenders and the party will announce candidates for nine parliamentary seats it is contesting in Haryana. The Kurukshetra seat is being fought by the Aam Aadmi Party which is a constituent of the opposition INDIA bloc.

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The Leader of the Opposition in Haryana asserted that the BJP's '400 paar' claim will remain only a slogan as it will be wiped out in south India while its seats in the northern states would be halved.

The result of the Lok Sabha elections "will also lay the foundation for the formation of Congress government in Haryana (where polls are due later this year), because every section is unhappy with the BJP government", Hooda said.

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"Today, the unemployed youth are protesting on the streets by taking out processions, farmers are angry over not getting MSP... while workers and the middle class are dejected due to decreasing income," he said.

About the Congress' rivals claiming that the party was running away from the contest and have not yet fielded candidates for the Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, Hooda hit back, saying the "BJP did not even have its own candidates to contest the elections in the state".

"People from the Congress and other parties were included in the BJP and handed over tickets," the former Haryana chief minister said.

"The Congress has a long list of strong contenders for tickets. It certainly takes time to discuss all the names, but the candidatures are almost finalized and the names may be released by the high command anytime," he added.

Hooda said that like the entire country, the Congress is fighting the poll battle in Haryana with full strength.

"The poll analysts who were giving eight to nine seats to the BJP a few days ago, today are showing that the party is facing defeat on those many seats. All election surveys show that the graph of Congress is increasing and that of BJP falling. As the voting date approaches, it will become clear that the Congress is winning in Haryana," he asserted.

Polling for all 10 seats in the state will be held in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha polls on May 25.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)