The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on January 8 began discussions on seat sharing for the coming Lok Sabha polls. Both parties are part of the Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) of the Opposition parties that have come together to take on the BJP.
Senior leaders from both the parties, who attended the over two-hour meeting in the capital, refused to divulge any information but said they had a positive and fruitful discussion regarding cooperation.
Senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik, addressing the media after the meeting, said: “We held a meeting on scores of issues for the upcoming elections. Talks will go on and we will meet again and only then we will take a final call on seat sharing. Everything was discussed in detail. We will fight the elections together and give a befitting reply to the BJP.”
AAP leaders who attended the meeting stood alongside Mr. Wasnik, when he addressed the media, but none of them gave a separate statement after the meeting.
An AAP leader who was part of the meeting said, “The fact that we came out of the meeting and only Mukul Wasnik gave a joint statement for both the parties shows that the meeting was positive. Today was about building trust and we have got a good start.”
However, sources claimed that in the first meeting, the AAP sought to expand the ambit of seat sharing beyond Punjab and Delhi by bringing in States like Goa, Gujarat and Haryana.
Mr. Wasnik, however, told AAP leaders that their mandate was only to discuss Delhi.
Punjab too was not discussed as the Congress is the principal opposition party and the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) is opposed to any kind of tie-up with the ruling AAP.
The Pradesh Congress Committee, however, had said it would abide by the decision taken by the high command.
The discussions between the two parties are significant as the AAP holds power in Delhi and Punjab where it seized power from the Congress.
Sticky point
Another AAP leader said they want a larger share of seats in Delhi and Punjab as they were in power in both the States. But the Congress had done better than the AAP in the last Lok Sabha election in both the States and this could turn out to be a sticky point.
In 2019, pre-poll alliance talks between the AAP and the Congress for Delhi and Haryana did not materialise as both the parties insisted on a larger share of seats in Delhi.
On Monday, the AAP was represented by Rajya Sabha member Sandeep Pathak and Delhi Cabinet Ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, and Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chaddha, who were part of earlier INDIA alliance meetings were not present.
Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely, and senior party leaders Salman Khurshid and Mohan Prakash apart from Mr. Wasnik were present.
A senior Congress leader who was part of the discussion said a lot of issues were discussed about how to build cooperation between the two parties but there was no discussion on seat sharing yet. “Seat sharing will be discussed in subsequent meetings to be held in one or two days. Today was just the first meeting on how to strengthen the alliance and we found them to be cordial, flexible and positive about the alliance,” the senior leader said.
Senior Congress leader and AICC treasurer Ajay Maken and former MP Sandeep Dikshit have been vocal about not having an alliance with the AAP in the past. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election in Delhi, the AAP lost all seven seats, with the Congress getting 22% of the vote share and the AAP getting 18%. In Punjab, the Congress won eight of the 13 seats with a 40.12% of votes while the AAP won one seat with a vote share of 7.38%.
