Alliance with AAP still possible if talks confined to Delhi, says Congress

NEW DELHI: Blaming

AAP

for derailing talks on an alliance, senior Congress leader

PC Chacko

said on Friday that his party was “still open” to joining hands with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party for the seven Lok Sabha seats in the capital if the discussion was “confined to Delhi”.

Chacko said Congress would formally announce the candidates for all the seven seats in a day or two, but the possibility of a tie-up was open till the nominations were filed and the candidates announced now could even be withdrawn. But he added that it was a hypothetical situation as AAP had openly said it was not willing to ally with Congress now.

“We were ready (for the alliance) and we are ready even now, but other than Delhi (alliance) was not possible (in any other state),” the Congress in-charge for Delhi told TOI.

AAP, however, accused Congress of ignoring the interests of the country by not stitching an alliance to prevent anti-BJP votes from splitting. “It was only in the interest of the country that we decided to have a tie-up with Congress, but Congress has nothing to do with the country,” AAP Delhi convener Gopal Rai said on Friday. He added that in order to defeat the “dictatorship of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah” a united fight was needed on 33 seats (Punjab 13, Haryana 10, Delhi 7, Goa 2 and Chandigarh 1).

Chacko, however, said with 4% votes in Goa (in the last assembly elections) AAP didn’t have any base outside Delhi. “There is no meaning in what they are saying (on alliance in Haryana and Goa). There is a genuine issue for alliance in Delhi where they are stronger than us, but not in Haryana,” he said.

Congress had earlier said that AAP had been “greedy” and “unreasonable” on the issue of distribution of seats. “I told (AAP Rajya Sabha MP) Sanjay Singh (who was negotiating with Congress on behalf of his party) when he met me that we were ready to give them the four seats they were demanding, including East Delhi where (Delhi Congress chief) Sheila Dikshit’s son contested the election. But next day, he raised the issue of Haryana,” Chacko said.

He further said that Congress’ vote share in the last election (civic polls in 2017) was 21%, while AAP polled 26%. “In 2015, we polled 9% while they got 52% and won 67 of 70 seats. While our vote share increased, theirs came down by just half. That was the time people were supporting them but things have changed now. They are reducing and we are increasing. But in spite of that, we were okay with the alliance, but there is no reason why they should make this (Haryana) an issue,” Chacko said.

Chacko said Rahul Gandhi was being criticised for his unwillingness to come to an understanding, but the Congress president took the biggest risk by rejecting the state unit’s reservations and giving a go-ahead to exploring the possibility of an alliance.