The Delhi Congress Chief Devender Yadav on Friday said the Congress will contest the Delhi Assembly polls in 2025 on their own without an alliance a day after AAP state convener Gopal Rai hinted that the alliance with Congress in the national capital was limited to Lok Sabha 2024 elections.
Yadav, who was appointed as the Delhi Congress President after Arvinder Singh Lovely resigned from the post and joined BJP, claimed that the alliance was made with AAP only for the general elections. “I think, before elections, we tried to make a strong alliance in the form of the INDIA alliance. In this fight to save the democracy of the country, a lot of like-minded people came together. AAP too came together with us in Delhi. We contested in good coordination and you can see that but I would like to make it clear that our alliance was for Lok Sabha elections.”
The AAP-Congress combine drew a blank in the Lok Sabha polls in Delhi, with BJP effecting a clean sweep on all seven parliamentary seats for a record third time. The Congress, which fought in alliance with AAP, lost all the seats of North East Delhi, North West Delhi and Chandni Chowk seats. The party secured a vote share of 18.94 per cent in 2024 which was 22.6 per cent in 2019 elections. In 2014 polls, the party secured 15.2 per cent vote share.
Further, Yadav stated that it will address its shortcomings in this election and work on it. “We had discussions with our seniors yesterday too and we are in touch with our colleagues for the next two days too. We discussed where we fell short and why we could not convert seats. I am sure that we will work on the shortcomings and by playing the role of a strong Opposition, we will revive Congress back to Delhi too,” the Delhi Congress Chief stated. The AAP that contested East Delhi, West Delhi, New Delhi and South Delhi seats could also not secure a single win. However, its vote share rose to 24.14 per cent as compared to 18.2 per cent in 2019 polls. In 2014, the AAP’s vote share was 33.1 per cent in 2014 general election
On Thursday, after a meeting of party MLAs and senior leaders at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence, Rai said that the party gave full support to the INDIA bloc in the Lok Sabha polls. However, he hinted on going solo in the assembly polls next year and stated, “The INDIA bloc was only contesting the Lok Sabha polls. Several parties fought elections together and AAP was also a part of it. As of now, there is no alliance for the Delhi Assembly polls,” he said.
Talking about the loss of all seven seats of Delhi in Lok Sabha elections, he stated, “There is a trend in Delhi that we have seen that the people vote differently in the Lok Sabha elections and Assembly elections. The pattern has repeated in this general election and will be repeated in the assembly elections also in 2025. Hence, we are focusing on the developmental projects.” He added that the greatest benefit from the alliance with Congress was that the margins of loss have reduced.
Delhi has 70 assembly segments, including 13 SC reserved ones, and seven Lok Sabha constituencies. Each parliamentary segment has 10 assembly seats. In the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, the AAP had allied with the Congress to contest the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital.
