Former Kurukshetra Member of Parliament Raj Kumar Saini, who heads the Loktanter Suraksha Party (LSP) expressed willingness to join the INDIA bloc.

Talking to HT, Saini said that he met Haryana Congress in-charge Deepak Babaria last week and expressed willingness to join the INDIA bloc and requested Sonepat parliamentary seat.

“Our party has a strong base in Sonepat and Kurukshetra parliamentary seats. I asked for the Sonepat seat as the Kurukshetra seat was given to the Aam Aadmi Party. If the talks fail, I will file my nomination from Kurukshetra seat as I won from the seat in the 2014 general polls,” he added.

Saini had defeated INLD’s Balbir Singh Saini in 2014 Lok Sabha polls on BJP’s ticket by 1.3 lakh votes and he later floated his own party despite staying in BJP.

He contested the 2019 assembly polls from Gohana and lost to Congress’s Jagbir Malik.

When asked about speculations that he can merge his party into Congress, Saini said that he had floated his party in 2018 to raise the voice of other backward classes and scheduled castes and he will never merge his party with another outfit.

A senior Haryana Congress functionary, on the request of anonymity, said that Saini had met Babaria in Delhi last week and chances of inducting his party into INDIA bloc are very low as two communities- Jats and Brahmins are upset with him.

“Saini used filthy remarks against the Jat community during the 2016 Jat quota stir and he is speaking against the Brahmin community since he was expelled from the BJP. Saini himself has some presence in Kurukshetra and some pockets of Gohana in Sonepat but he is not in a good position to win a parliamentary election,” the senior leader added.

Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan could not be reached for comment.

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