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No alliance with Cong in Lok Sabha polls in Punjab, says AAP minister
Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring reiterated that the national leadership of the party has told the state unit to prepare for fighting all 13 Lok Sabha seats
Chandigarh: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will not tie up with the Congress in Punjab and contest all 13 Lok Sabha seats in the upcoming general elections, state cabinet minister Anmol Gagan Maan said on Wednesday.
Maan’s announcement came at a time when several Congress leaders voiced strong reservations against any alliance with the ruling party. It also came days after the Opposition’s INDIA grouping, which comprises 28 parties and includes both the AAP and Congress, met in Mumbai in a bid to forge a larger unity against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre, ahead of the polls.
Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu, however, took a different line from his party colleagues, saying “selfish vested interests should be discarded for safeguarding democracy”.
Addressing a press conference in Chandigarh, Maan said the AAP will contest all 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state under the leadership of chief minister Bhagwant Mann.
“We do not need any alliance with the Congress. We are an honest party. People have given us a strong mandate with 92 seats (out of 117 in the state assembly) and they love Mann’s style,” the state tourism minister said.
The decision to not enter into any seat-sharing arrangement with the Congress in Punjab was taken by the state unit under the guidance of the chief minister, she added.
Referring to the INDIA bloc, Maan said the alliance between opposition parties at the national level is being formed to remove the “dictatorial government” of the BJP and to “safeguard democracy”, but the political situation in Punjab is “different”.
“We will contest the Lok Sabha elections independently under the leadership of chief minister Bhagwant Mann. The AAP will have no alliance with Congress,” she said.
Asked if these were her own views, the minister said the views are of the party and the directions of the chief minister.
On September 1, the INDIA bloc, in its Mumbai meeting, resolved to contest the 2024 polls together “as far as possible”, asserting seat-sharing arrangements in states will be concluded at the earliest in a “collaborative spirit of give-and-take”.
The Punjab Congress, too, indicated it is not keen on joining hands with the AAP.
State Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said the party is confident that the Congress high command will not take any decision without its consent. He reiterated that the national leadership has told the state unit to prepare for fighting all 13 Lok Sabha seats.
“We are playing the role of opposition against the government and are preparing for the 13 seats. We have not been told by the party high command about any alliance or seat sharing in the state,” he said.
However, in a post on X, Sidhu said: “The decision of the party high command is supreme. It is for a greater cause; the national interest has been kept paramount to honour the spirit of the Constitution and to free the enchained institutions which draw their strength from constitutional values. Petty perish pump politics loaded with selfish vested interests should be discarded for safeguarding our DEMOCRACY. Elections are not fought for the next election, they are fought for the next generation.”
His views on the micro-blogging site, however, did not go down well with party leaders in the state.
Asked about Sidhu’s post, Warring said they have been saying all along that the party high command is supreme and its decision would be final.
“We are also confident that it (high command) will not take any decision on the alliance without taking their consent,” he added at a press conference at the party office here. Later, leader of opposition (LoP) Partap Singh Bajwa on Wednesday said the AAP is desperate to ally with the Congress, but no party leader in the state has ever issued a statement about contesting elections in alliance with the ruling party.
“It is only the AAP leadership that is making such statements because they have lost ground in Punjab,” he said. The LoP said the sentiments of the Punjab Congress cadre are in favour of contesting the forthcoming Lok Sabha election in 2024 alone.
He said the Congress high command had given the freedom to the state unit to assess the mood of the people of Punjab, Congress cadre, and workers. “The point of view of the Punjab Congress, including cadre and workers, is that we have no connections with the AAP in the state and will fight the upcoming general election in 2024 on our own,” he added, calling AAP’s victory in the 2022 state polls a political experiment that has failed terribly.
