AAp announced candidates for six seats in Delhi for the 2019 Lok Sabha election
There could be "strategic reasons" behind the Aam Aadmi Party announcing its candidates on six Lok Sabha seats in Delhi even though it spoke about an alliance to defeat the BJP, the Congress said Saturday.
It was the AAP's theory that an alliance with the Congress will help in defeating the BJP in the general elections, but now they have declared candidates on six seats in Delhi, Congress general secretary and the party's in-charge for Delhi PC Chacko said.
"If that theory has vanished now, there could be strategic reasons to announce candidates in Delhi while talking about the need for an alliance with the Congress to defeat the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls," he told PTI.
The AAP's city convener Gopal Rai declared names of six candidates from Delhi having seven Lok Sabha seats. The candidate on West Delhi seat will be announced soon, he said.
Gopal Rai claimed that the AAP took the decision to declare its candidates after it was communicated, first by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and then by the party's Delhi president Sheila Dikshit, that they do not want an alliance for the Lok Sabha polls.
The Delhi Congress in a meeting chaired by Sheila Dikshit, on Friday, decided to convey to the Congress high command that it doesn't want an alliance with the AAP in the national capital.
Sources said a section in the Congress believed that an alliance with the AAP in Delhi will pave way for the BJP's defeat in the upcoming polls.
The BJP, at present, holds all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi.
AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal had earlier claimed that if an alliance between the AAP and the Congress does not materialise, the BJP will again win all the seven seats in the upcoming elections.
An AAP leader, privy to issues related to alliance, on Friday had said the party was ready to give one seat to the Congress in Delhi besides staking claims on four seats in Punjab won by it in 2014, and Chandigarh. In return, Congress would be given free hand in Haryana and Goa, he had said.