AAP, Congress hold joint meeting to discuss strategies

New Delhi: Days after senior members of Congress and Aam Aadmi Party held a meeting to plan a joint campaign strategy for Delhi and Haryana, the state unit functionaries of the two parties met on Thursday and discussed “strategic coordination” on ground for the North East Delhi candidate, Kanhaiya Kumar.Kanhaiya, who is being portrayed as an INDIA bloc candidate, along with Delhi Congress’ election management and co-ordination committee chairman Subhash Chopra and former minister Narender Nath called on AAP’s Delhi state convener Gopal Rai for their first joint meeting for the constituency.Several AAP MLAs, who were also part of the meeting, promised to throw their weight behind Kanhaiya, who is fighting his first election in the capital. A former president of JNU Students Union, Kanhaiya is pitted against BJP’s Manoj Tiwari who won the last two Lok Sabha elections.Congress’ Chandni Chowk candidate Jai Prakash Agarwal also held a meeting in Model Town area, which was attended by AAP MLA Akhilesh Pati Tripathi and municipal councillors of the area.Constituents of opposition parties’ INDIA bloc, Congress and AAP have joined hands in Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat to prevent the splitting of the non-BJP votes. Of seven seats in Delhi, AAP is contesting four and Congress three. In Haryana, AAP is contesting on one of 10 seats while it has fielded its candidates on two seats in Gujarat. The two parties, however, are fighting against each other in Punjab.Kanhaiya was the first Congress candidate in the city who not only gave as much space to the photograph of AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal as his own party leader Rahul Gandhi but also called on chief minister’s wife Sunita Kejriwal at her residence to convey that they were “united in the fight to save the democracy”. The support and coordination between the two parties was evident at the inauguration of the election office of Kanhaiya last week when a large number of AAP workers, wearing white caps and having yellow-blue stole around their necks, attended the event.Agarwal, too, has been proactive in seeking support of AAP legislators who won from assembly seats falling in Chandni Chowk constituency in his election campaign and has individually met each one of them in the last few days.Agarwal met AAP’s leader of the house in MCD, Mukesh Goyal, at his residence and discussed the elections and had a meeting with minister Imran Hussain in Ballimaran, which was followed by similar meetings in Shalimar Bagh and Model Town assembly constituencies.“Both Congress and Aam Aadmi Party have resolved to work with complete coordination and understanding in Lok Sabha elections in Delhi to ensure the victory of all the seven candidates,” Delhi Congress’ communications in charge Anil Bharadwaj said. “Both the parties will announce one observer each in all constituencies to ensure that the election campaigns are held in a smooth and effective manner. A meeting of the co-ordination committee will be held on Friday to draw up a roadmap for the joint campaigns,” he added.