Congress Concedes Alliance Talks With AAP Failed, Party To Contest All 7 LS Seats In Delhi

After weeks of sending conflicting signals on whether or not it will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in alliance with Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Delhi’s seven seats, the Congress party, on Friday, finally conceded that talks of a pre-poll tie-up have failed.

With exactly a month left before polling for Delhi’s seven parliamentary seats – scheduled for May 12, the sixth of the seven phase Lok Sabha elections – the Congress now has days left to finalise its candidates for the national capital. The AAP had already declared its candidates on all the seats last month and its nominees have initiated their door-to-door campaign for the polls.

Congress general secretary in-charge of party affairs in Delhi, PC Chacko, who had been stridently lobbying for an alliance with the AAP despite stiff resistance from the state-unit’s leadership – former chief minister Sheila Dikshit in particular – told reporters that since “AAP is not taking a practical view on the alliance, we have been compelled to go on our own and contest on all seven seats.”

Chacko said that the party’s central election committee had discussed probable candidates for all seven seats and come to a “consensus on candidates for four seats” while talks are still on for the remaining three seats. He said that the party will declare its candidates in a day or two. 

The alliance talks with AAP, broke down, say Congress leaders, because Kejriwal’s interlocutors on the pre-poll tie up were adamant on a seat-sharing formula that extended to Haryana and Punjab too.

The AAP had won four Lok Sabha seats from Punjab in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls though it drew a blank in Delhi, finishing second on all seven seats ahead of the Congress party. However, Congress leaders believe that the strength of AAP in Punjab had dramatically worsened over the past three years with at least two of its sitting MPs openly criticizing Kejriwal’s leadership and several of its MLAs in the Punjab Assembly too in the mood for a rebellion. In stark contrast, the Congress under Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh had been steadily gaining ground in the state and saw no reason to cede its ground to the AAP. In Haryana too, local party leaders like Bhupinder Hooda, Kumari Selja, Kiran Chaudhary, Randeep Surjewala and others stridently opposed any possibility of a tie-up with AAP.

Congress leaders agree that the absence of an alliance in Delhi would help the BJP but say that giving away seven of the national capital was a better deal than allowing the AAP to establish its presence in states like Punjab and Haryana where the Grand Old Party is confident of its revival. With AAP and Congress clear on going solo for the upcoming polls, the anti-BJP votes in the national capital are bound to split. Congress sources say that the possibility of a back channel understanding with AAP has still been kept open.

“Of Delhi’s seven seats, our internal understanding is that AAP has a strong chance of wresting the East Delhi seat while it can also give the BJP a tough fight in the South Delhi constituency. On the remaining seats, particularly Chandni Chowk, North-East Delhi, New Delhi and West Delhi, we have strong nominees and we will try to have some understanding either directly with the AAP leadership or with its candidates to transfer their votes to our candidates who have a better chance of winning. All options are on the table,” a senior party leader said.

Meanwhile, former Union minister Krishna Tirath, who had quit the Congress to join the BJP in 2015, has returned to the party. Tirath had won multiple assembly and Lok Sabha polls from Delhi before her defeat in 2014 from the North West Delhi seat. In the 2015 Delhi assembly polls, she had contested on a BJP ticket from the Patel Nagar seat but lost to the AAP candidate. Sources say Tirath, a Dalit leader, may be fielded by the Congress from the North West Delhi Lok Sabha constituency in the upcoming polls, a seat she won twice – in 2004 and 2009.

Party sources say other leaders who are being considered for a Congress ticket for the Lok Sabha polls are former Union ministers Kapil Sibal (Chandni Chowk) and Ajay Maken (New Delhi), former President of India Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter and Delhi Congress media cell chief Sharmishta Mukherjee (South Delhi), among others.

The BJP, which currently holds all of Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats, too hasn’t declared its candidates as yet. The party had, perhaps, been waiting for the suspense over the AAP-Congress alliance to end so that it could finalise its candidates accordingly. The party is unlikely to repeat all its sitting MPs for the upcoming polls but could renominate incumbents Dr Harsh Vardhan, Manoj Tiwari and Meenakshi Lekhi.