After a crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha election, AAP’s Delhi in-charge Gopal Rai on Friday told The Hindu that they will not form an alliance with any party for the Assembly election due early next year.
“We will not form any alliance in the Assembly elections. We would fight it alone,” he said. When asked whether he gives credit to the BJP for the victory or was there any EVM rigging, Mr. Rai said, “Till now, there has been no major difference between the EVM results and the counting of VVPAT slips [in this election].” On selection of candidates, Mr. Rai said, “We did not get it wrong by choosing new faces. When we won the Assembly elections in 2015, most of us were new faces. Even many of the BJP candidates who have won this time, such as Gautam Gambhir and Hans Raj Hans, are new faces.”
He also said an alliance with the Congress for the Lok Sabha would not have made a difference. “The vote shares of the election shows that the alliance would not have made any impact,” he added. In each of the seven Lok Sabha seats, BJP had more vote share than combined vote share of AAP and the Congress.
Mr. Rai said in AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s closed-door meeting with party leaders on Sunday, it will be decided on how the boost the morale of the workers after the defeats in the local body elections in 2017 and the Lok Sabha election.
