Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Taking a U-turn from what it did a decade ago—launching a nationwide agitation to dislodge the “corrupt” Congress-led UPA government—the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday announced a seat-sharing formula for Delhi and some other states with the same Grand Old Party (GOP) for the coming Lok Sabha elections—but not in Punjab where the AAP decided to contest all 13 seats on its own.
With Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal fearing arrest anytime now, his political outfit decided to climb down from its earlier rhetoric to contest all seats in the national capital and said it will now contest four Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and the Congress three.
The BJP had won all seven Delhi seats in the 2019 parliamentary elections.
On Friday, the Congress had agreed to share 17 LS seats and the Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party 63 in Uttar Pradesh.
The AAP-Congress combine, each facing an existential crisis, also announced their seat-sharing arrangements for Gujarat, Goa and Haryana.
Addressing a joint press conference with AAP leader Sandeep Pathak, Congress leader Mukul Wasnik said the AAP will contest the New Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi, and East Delhi seats, while his party will fight for the Chandni Chowk, the Northeast Delhi, and the Northwest Delhi seats.
“In Gujarat, the AAP will contest from Bharuch and Bhavnagar, while the Congress will field its candidates from the remaining 24 seats in the state. In Haryana, the AAP will contest the Lok Sabha polls from Kurukshetra. The Congress will contest both the Lok Sabha seats in Goa,” he said.
Despite the late Congress veteran Ahmed Patel’s family members desiring to contest from Bharuch, the AAP already announced candidates for this seat as well as for the Bhavnagar Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat.
The Congress will also contest the lone seat in Chandigarh, Wasnik said.
Pathak said the AAP and the Congress have decided to contest Lok Sabha polls separately in Punjab.
Wasnik said that even though the two parties will fight on different election symbols, they will work to ensure success on all seven seats in Delhi.
The Congress and the AAP are constituents of the INDIA bloc, formed by opposition parties in June 2023 to take on the BJP-led NDA in the upcoming general elections.