NEW DELHI: After days of suspense, many rounds of talks and mutual recriminations, AAP and Congress have decided to go their separate ways in the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi. AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh announced this on Wednesday evening, setting the stage for a triangular contest on the capital’s seven seats, currently held by BJP. This is good news for the saffron party.The pro-alliance lobby in Congress confirmed the development, claiming that the talks broke down because they couldn’t agree on a seat-sharing formula. The speculation about an alliance had begun in June last year and persisted till Wednesday when AAP officially and Congress unofficially closed the chapter.“Congress did not want to give us a single seat in Punjab, where we have four MPs and 20 MLAs; in Chandigarh where we polled 1.5 lakh votes in 2014; and in Goa where we got 6% votes in the assembly elections,” said Singh, who was involved in the protracted negotiations right from the beginning.“In Delhi, where Congress does not have any MLA or MP, they wanted three Lok Sabha seats.” Singh said Congress wanted to have an impractical alliance which was not acceptable to AAP.Congress sources, on the other hand, said AAP had become “greedy” and was demanding that the pact be extended to Punjab, Haryana and Goa. “They started demanding one seat in Goa where the party could only get 6% votes in the last assembly elections. They also wanted us to include Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) in the pact and give it three of the 10 seats in the state,” said a senior party leader.Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit — who had made no bones about the fact that she was opposed to any such alliance though she was willing to go along with whatever Rahul Gandhi decided — said she had also heard about the development. “But let it come from official channels,” she said. Unlike AAP, Congress did not make any official announcement .There had been a meeting between Singh and Delhi in-charge of Congress, PC Chacko, last Wednesday to discuss seat-sharing but the talks remained inconclusive. Sources said AAP was ready for an alliance without any seats in Punjab, provided Congress gave it Gurgaon, Faridabad and Karnal in Haryana. In such a situation, AAP was ready to give Congress three seats in Delhi. Since Congress did not budge on AAP’s demands, AAP sources said an alliance would have demoralized its workers.Congress is likely to announce its candidates for all seats in Delhi and Haryana on Thursday. AAP has already announced seven candidates for Delhi.Both parties made protracted efforts for an alliance because their vote share in all recent elections showed that taken together, they were stronger than BJP.AAP got a 33.1% vote share in the 2014 elections while Congress got 15.2%. This was when a strong Modi wave swept Delhi but the combined vote share of AAP and Congress at 48.3% was more than BJP’s 46.6%. AAP and Congress took on BJP separately in the 2017 municipal elections and BJP managed to win easily despite strong anti-incumbency.AAP’s vote share declined sharply from 54% in the 2015 Delhi assembly elections to 26% with Congress getting 21%. So, they had combined strength of 47% as against BJP’s 37%. Hence, BJP now has a distinct advantage on all seats.Significantly, all through this, there was no let-up in AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal ’s attack on Dikshit and Congress. Singh on Wednesday alleged that Congress was helping BJP due to some compulsion. “I feel Congress was working with the objective to ensure that the alliance does not work out. What deal has been struck that Congress is helping BJP in Bengal, UP, Kerala?” he asked, adding that “everywhere where the Opposition is strong, Congress is making all efforts.”He said BJP would have been defeated on 33 seats (13 in Punjab, 10 in Haryana, seven in Delhi, two in Goa and one in Chandigarh) had AAP and Congress come together. Meanwhile, AAP Delhi convener, Gopal Rai , said the country will suffer and not forgive Congress for not going for a united fight against BJP.