Is an AAP-Congress alliance in Delhi still on the table? Indicating trouble for the possible tie-up, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, addressing a rally in Punjab’s Tarn Taran on Sunday, said: “They [BJP] are stopping us here in Punjab and in Delhi, they obstruct any work that I try to do. Delhi has seven Lok Sabha seats. The people of Delhi have decided that they will make the AAP win on all seven seats.”
The following day, AAP’s Delhi in-charge and minister Gopal Rai said the issue would be discussed in the meeting of the AAP’s Political Affairs Committee on Tuesday where the party is set to finalise candidates for Goa, Gujarat and Haryana.
Given that the BJP won all seven Lok Sabha seats in 2019 by over 50 per cent vote share, political analysts believe that even if the Congress and AAP come together, it will be a challenge to pull off a win in Delhi.
Asked about the AAP chief’s statement, Rai said: “His statement indicated that BJP is losing all 7 seats in Delhi, given the manner in which it has conducted itself, the manner in which it snatched the powers of Delhi, flouted the SC’s orders, and obstructed the work of the government. BJP has seven MPs in Delhi since 10 years. However, no one knows what work they have done except for supporting the Centre when it obstructs the work of Delhi.”
On News18’s specific question on whether an alliance with the Congress in Delhi is still on the table, the AAP minister said the issue will be taken up for detailed discussion in Tuesday’s PAC.
“AAP continues to be part of the India gathbandhan. There have been many rounds of talks. However, we believe that now it is getting very late. There is a need to take a decision on seats quickly, given the situation now and the manner in which we are losing time and seats. The PAC has been called tomorrow where the matter will be discussed in detail, and a decision will be taken given the current situation,” he said.
Rai re-iterated what the AAP has been saying for the past one week — that it is tired of talks. All eyes are on the AAP’s PAC now. While being a part of the INDIA gathbandhan, AAP has already unilaterally declared one candidate for Gujarat, three for Assam and has said that it expects the partners in the INDIA bloc to accept its faces. Both AAP and Congress have said that they will fight Punjab alone.
Even in 2019, there were attempts by the AAP and Congress to forge a pre-poll alliance in Punjab, Delhi, Goa and Haryana. However, talks collapsed and both blamed the other for the failure of the proposed alliance. The AAP had said that an alliance, just in Delhi, was not feasible after Congress indicated that it was not interested in sharing space in Goa, Punjab and Haryana. Rahul Gandhi, then the Congress president, had tweeted saying that the Congress was ready to offer four seats to the AAP in Delhi but the AAP had made another U-turn.
Comments
0 comment