Congress has more or less ruled out an alliance, says Arvind Kejriwal

Asked whether the AAP was more eager for an alliance with the Congress, Kejriwal said the BJP would benefit in a three-cornered contest.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Thursday that Congress has “more or less” ruled out an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, a day after he met the Congress President in a meeting of opposition leaders.

Top leaders of major opposition parties got together at Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar’s home in New Delhi on February 13. (HT Photo)

Responding to a question on an alliance with the Congress, he said it has “more or less ruled out the alliance (with AAP)”. The Lok Sabha elections are due in April-May this year.

Asked whether the AAP was more eager for an alliance with the Congress, he said the BJP would benefit in a three-cornered contest. “It is important to put up a united front against the BJP in Lok Sabha elections. Anti-BJP vote should not be divided,” Kejriwal said.

In their effort to put up a united anti-BJP front for the Lok Sabha elections, top opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee Wednesday agreed to work together to prepare a common minimum programme to oust the Modi government and to consider forging a pre-poll alliance.

The ruling BJP has often made fun of the disparate parties coming together calling it a ‘mahamilawat’. Prime Minster Narendra Modi took a dig at the opposition parties saying the elusive grand-alliance is a “mahamilawat” (adulteration), which the people will reject in the elections.

“The people of India have seen the work a government with a full majority can do. They have seen the work of NDA. They do not want a ‘mahamilawat’ government of those who assembled in Kolkata,” PM Modi said in a reference to the rally of 23 opposition parties in West Bengal last month.

“In 2014, the people of the country elected a government with full majority and the country experiences what happens when there is a ‘milawati’ (coalition) government. Now, they are planning ‘mahamilawat’. This ‘mahamilawat’ is not going to reach here (in Delhi). Keep this limited to Kolkata,” he said.