lok-sabha-elections

Updated: Mar 02, 2019 09:41 IST

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has approved the initiation of talks that could lead to a possible alliance in Delhi with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the coming parliamentary elections, a Congress leader directly involved in the discussion said on condition of anonymity.

The two parties established contact on Friday with a top Congress strategist close to the party leadership speaking to a senior Aam Aadmi Party leader, this person added. Delhi sends seven representatives to the Lok Sabha.

The Congress leader added that after Gandhi’s approval, the party’s central leadership was in the process of persuading those Delhi leaders who had been against forming any alliance with the AAP. This includes senior Congress leader Ajay Maken, who was until recently the party’s Delhi chief.

“If all goes well, we will firm up the alliance in Delhi next week before the announcement of the dates for the Lok Sabha elections,” the Congress leader said.

“But the alliance in Delhi is completely de-linked from other states.”

The AAP wants the alliance to extend to Punjab for sure, and perhaps even Haryana and Goa, two other states where it has some presence.

The formula likely to be suggested by the Congress to AAP leaders is that the two parties contest three seats each with the seventh going to a consensus candidate or a celebrity.

The AAP is unlikely to accept this proposal and could bargain hard during the negotiations.

“We have 67 seats in Delhi [in the 70-member assembly] and how can we accept a 3+3+1 formula. We want to contest on six seats in Delhi and four in Punjab, besides Chandigarh. In return, we will give the Congress one in Delhi, and leave Haryana and Goa open for negotiations,” a senior AAP leader said on condition of anonymity.

The Congress leader said the party’s Delhi in-charge, PC Chacko, has already held discussions with senior colleagues, including state unit president and former chief minster Sheila Dikshit.

A second Congress leader said the need to have an alliance in Delhi was strongly felt at a meeting of Opposition leaders at Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar’s residence in the national capital on February 13.

Apart from Pawar and Gandhi, the other leaders present in the meeting were Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo N Chandrababu Naidu, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee and Delhi chief minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal.

During the meeting, the leaders asked Gandhi about his stand on the alliance in Delhi, to which he replied that the Delhi unit of his party was against it.

But the dominant view in the meeting was that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could be defeated only if there was a oneon-one contest for a majority of the Lok Sabha seats, and urged Gandhi to explore the possibilities of joining hands with the AAP. Kejriwal has previously said that he is open to an alliance with the Congress.

An internal survey conducted by the Congress in Delhi showed that the party is not in a position to win any constituency on its own and that the BJP will win all the seven seats in case of a division of votes.

“We are not having ideological alliances for the Lok Sabha elections. The ultimate goal is to defeat the BJP. Look at Telangana, we had a tie-up with a party [TDP] that was formed on the anti-Congress plank. In West Bengal, we are ready to join hands with both Trinamool Congress and Left parties, and similarly, with the AAP in Delhi,” said a third Congress leader.

Interestingly, the Delhi Congress leaders, at a meeting at former Delhi chief minister and party leader Sheila Dikhsit’s residence on Friday “unanimously” rejected an alliance with the AAP but maintained that a final call would be taken by Gandhi.

In a statement issued after that meeting, the leaders said the AAP’s winnability in all the state elections after its mammoth victory in Delhi in 2015 has been “poor” whereas the Congress was a national party which has “shown political wins”.

“Everyone was of the opinion that an alliance must not be entertained with the AAP. In Gujarat, Karnataka, Nagaland and Meghalaya and so many other states, their candidates lost their deposits,” said Delhi Congress spokesperson Jitender Kochar.