Congress ends speculation: ‘No tie-up with AAP’

NEW DELHI: On a day that began with strong speculation of a “gathbandhan” finally taking shape in the capital, Congress scotched all such talk and said on Tuesday evening that it was not going to have an alliance with Aam Aadmi Party for the LS polls.

Former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit said the party was in a “better position” in Delhi now and was capable of contesting the elections alone. “We have unanimously decided that we will not have an alliance with AAP,” Dikshit told TOI. “We will contest the elections on our own and there will certainly be no cooperation with AAP.”

The reaction from AAP was swift and scathing. “At a time when the whole country wants to defeat the Modi-Shah duo, Congress is helping BJP by splitting the anti-BJP vote. Rumours are that Congress has some secret understanding with BJP,” CM Arvind Kejriwal tweeted.


Kejriwal accused Congress of forming an “unholy alliance” with BJP. “Delhi is ready to fight against the Cong-BJP alliance. People will defeat this unholy alliance,” he tweeted.

Senior AAP members, however, said the door was still open for an alliance. The reason for the failure of talks is AAP’s demand for seats in Punjab and Haryana besides Delhi. AAP was ready to offer three seats to Congress in Delhi on the condition that it gets six of 13 seats in Punjab and four of 10 in Haryana. The Punjab unit of Congress, however, has been aggressively opposing conceding even a single seat to AAP. Sources said the Congress leadership may rethink and even make the state unit fall in line if a revised offer is made to the party.

With the partners of the grand alliance pressuring the Congress for joining hands with AAP, Rahul Gandhi called a meeting of senior members of the Delhi unit – Dikshit, DPCC working presidents Haroon Yusuf and Rajesh Lilothia, and former state presidents Ajay Maken, Arvinder Singh Lovely, Jai Prakash Agarwal, Yoganand Shastri and Subhash Chopra — to seek their opinion. Sources said that except for AICC general secretary in-charge of Delhi, P C Chacko, and Maken, all other members spoke against an alliance.

“We told Rahul ji that we did not want an alliance. He listened to us and agreed to what we said,” Dikshit said.

A senior party member said that those who favoured the alliance argued that a triangular contest will lead to division of non-BJP votes and only a joint opposition could stop BJP from winning the seven Delhi seats. Those who opposed the alliance were concerned about “all future polls”, especially the Delhi Assembly elections in 2020, he added.

“Any alliance would give AAP more space in Delhi politics,” said another senior party member, requesting anonymity. “The party will grow further in Delhi if it manages to win a seat with our help and will have a larger say in the Assembly polls. The alliance will harm Congress in the long run.”

Disappointed with the development, senior AAP members said a divided opposition will make the battle easy for BJP. Even at a time when AAP was at its peak and swept the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections by winning 67 of 70 seats, BJP’s vote share remained above 32%. It grew to 37% in the 2017 municipal elections while AAP’s share came down to 26%. With Congress’s vote share on the rise now, AAP leaders said they may lose their pole position.

That probably was the reason why Kejriwal made overtures to Congress but was rebuffed. Efforts made by leaders like Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her Andhra Pradesh counterpart, Chandrababu Naidu, also failed to bring the two parties together.

With BJP extensively using ‘nationalism’ as a tool for political gains, AAP finds itself in a tough situation, especially when the Assembly elections will be held barely a few months after the parliamentary polls. AAP and Congress largely share the same vote bank and both parties carry a huge risk of splitting the votes which might make the fight easier for BJP. Together, AAP and Congress would have posed a stiff challenge for BJP, said a senior party member