Shiromani Akali Dal (Taksali) president Ranjit Singh Brahmpura said on Thursday they will go alone in Punjab in the Lok Sabha elections if the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has an alliance with the Congress anywhere in the country.
His statement comes a day after AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal appealed to the Congress to join the proposed alliance between his party and the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) in neighbouring Haryana. Senior leaders of AAP and SAD (Taksali) have been holding talks for a possible alliance in Punjab for the last two weeks.
“If AAP has any tie-up with the Congress — be it in Haryana of anywhere else in India — we will not have any relation with the party,” Brahmpura told HT over phone. Party secretary general Sewa Singh Sekhwan also echoed his opinion, saying, “The Congress is our number one enemy. It attacked the Golden Temple in 1984 and is also responsible for the anti-Sikh riots. We consider it enemy of the panth.”
“We have fielded former army chief General JJ Singh from the Khadoor Sahib seat. Our next meeting with AAP leaders, including its Punjab chief Bhagwant Mann, is going to be held in a day or two. We will ask Mann to make it clear if they are going to have an alliance with the Congress anywhere,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“We have fielded former army chief General JJ Singh from the Khadoor Sahib seat. Our next meeting with AAP leaders, including its Punjab chief Bhagwant Mann, is going to be held in a day or two. We will ask Mann to make it clear if they are going to have an alliance with the Congress anywhere,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“If we have an alliance with AAP, Bir Devinder will remain our candidate from Sri Anandpur Sahib. They will have to withdraw their candidate from the seat,” he added.
AAP has already fielded Narinder Singh Shergill from the constituency. The alliance talks between the two parties started after the SAD (Taksali) parted its ways with the Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA) over the seat-sharing arrangement.
While the breakaway Akali Dal faction wanted its nominee Bir Devinder to contest from Anandpur Sahib, the PDA fielded BSP’s Vikram Singh Sodhi from the seat.
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