‘We agreed and then...’: AAP on failed alliance talks with Congress

The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday blamed the Congress for not having an alliance on 18 Lok Sabha seats of Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh. Senior party leader and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the Congress “wasted time” in the name of discussion over alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led ruling coalition in the Lok Sabha elections.

“The Congress was doing timepass, it had no intention of having an alliance in Haryana,” said Sisodia explaining why seat-sharing talks between the Congress, the AAP and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) of Dushyant Chautala.

Sisodia said, “The sole reason for us to go for an alliance with the Congress was to defeat the Modi-Shah pair in the election and not to fight over which party contests how many seats in these 18 Lok Sabha constituencies. But the Congress backtracked from the last agreed seat-sharing arrangement for Haryana.”

This came after AAP’s announcement on Friday that it had accepted one of Congress’s proposals for an alliance formula to share seats in the Lok Sabha elections indicating revival of their on-again, off-again discussions for electoral pact that began more than four months ago.

Sisodia said the three parties had agreed for the Congress’s proposal for a 7:2:1 seat-sharing arrangement in Haryana. The Congress was to contest seven seats, the JJP two and the AAP one.

“But after we agreed on this, the Congress retreated from the arrangement again,” Sisodia said at a press conference signaling that the tri-lateral alliance talks may be over and the AAP-JJP will field their candidates at all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana.

Delhi has seven Lok Sabha seats while Chandigarh has one parliamentary constituency.