Earlier, the Congress and the AAP were on the verge of finalising a seat-sharing agreement for Delhi. Sources also confirmed that both the parties were close to an agreement for fighting three seats each, while one was kept to be decided later.
New Delhi: Sheila Dikshit on Tuesday rubbished all possibilities of an alliance with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi for the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Dikshit’s decision came after a morning full of speculations.
In a statement, Dikshit said, "A unanimous decision has been taken that there will be no alliance in Delhi."
This is the second flip flop by the Congress that has brought the talk of a seat-sharing deal back to square one.
Earlier, the Congress and the AAP were on the verge of finalising a seat-sharing agreement for Delhi. Sources also confirmed that both the parties were close to making an agreement for fighting three seats each, while one was kept to be decided later.
Sources privy to the discussion said that the remaining one could have gone to Yashwant Sinha — one of the harshest critics of the Modi government. However, it was not clear whether he would have fought independently or from any of the two parties.
After former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit dropped a bomb, all possibilities of an alliance seem to have faded away.
What's interesting is that the Congress general secretary and the party's in-charge for Delhi PC Chacko told PTI earlier, "If that theory has vanished now, there could be strategic reasons to announce candidates in Delhi while talking about the need for an alliance with the Congress to defeat the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls".
The AAP's city convener Gopal Rai declared names of six candidates from Delhi, which is having seven Lok Sabha seats. The candidate on West Delhi seat will be announced soon, he said.
Gopal Rai claimed that the AAP took the decision to declare its candidates after it was communicated, first by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and then by the party's Delhi president Sheila Dikshit, that they do not want an alliance for the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP, at present, holds all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi.
Both the AAP and the Congress were close to sealing a deal when it fell off after an AAP MLA moved a motion in the Delhi assembly against former PM Rajiv Gandhi for his alleged role in 1984 anti-Sikh massacre.
AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal had earlier claimed that if an alliance between the AAP and the Congress does not materialise, the BJP will win all the seven seats again in the upcoming elections.
An AAP leader, privy to issues related to the alliance, on Friday, had said the party was ready to give one seat to the Congress in Delhi besides staking claims on four seats in Punjab won by it in 2014, and Chandigarh. In return, Congress would be given free hand in Haryana and Goa, he had said.
(With PTI Inputs)
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