Putting an end to a long saga of talks for forging an ‘alliance’ with the Congress, senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said an alliance only in Delhi is not possible after the Congress refused to have a tie-up in other States.
Explaining it further, he reiterated that the aim to form coalition was to prevent the “communal forces” in the Country to regain power at Centre but the purpose will not be served by coming together in Delhi only. “In order to prevent Modi-Shah duo to regain power at Centrer, we planned to contest at 33 seats in States such as Delhi, Punjab, Goa, Chandigarh, Haryana but the Congress refused to share seats in these States tabling different formulas every time,” Sisodia said.
The AAP leader said that the party was formed protesting against corruption fueled by the Congress. “We have been fighting against corruption till now but considering that the Modi- Shah duo which has become a threat to the nation, this is necessary to free the country from communal forces so that the country is not further divided on its basis,” he said, adding that all the talks process to forge alliance were initiated with an aim to prevent the due to retain power at centre.
Sisodia said “If we talk about Delhi, the Congress has no representative in either Legislative Assembly or in Parliament. “The party got only 10 per cent of vote share in Delhi in last election but still they are adamant on their demand by asking three seats in Delhi but 3 refusing to share even a single seat with AAP in Punjab where we have 20 MLAs and four MPs,” he said.
Talking about alliance in Haryana, Sisodia said the congress is very weak and even senior Congress leaders agreed that they are losing all the seats in the state. But when we proposed to forge alliance with Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) which has earlier been part of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), the consensus was also not arrived as the Congress refused and said they can’t give more than two seats to the JJP and proposed 7:2:1 formula,” he said, adding that the it first proposed 6:3:1 seat sharing formula to the AAP in Haryana where six seats would be for Congress, three for Janayak Janata Party and one seat for AAP,” he said.
JJP chief Dushyant Chautala even agreed to that but then the Congress changed its position again on Friday night, saying there is no possibility of formation of any alliance anywhere except Delhi that too on 4:3 formula, he said.
Senior AAP leader and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh, who was negotiating with the Congress, said that party’s decision to form an alliance with the Congress was to stop the Modi-Shah duo as they are threat for the national constitution, democracy and constitutional structure, so we were in talks to stop them to form government at centre.
When asked the 4:3 seat sharing formula proposed by the Congress, Singh said “We are strong and can win all the seven seats in Delhi. Leaving three seats to the Congress would mean “giving three seats to the BJP”.
Singh further said they have agreed to all the seat sharing arrangements that the Congress proposed but even then the Congres did a volte-face.
I may be noted that on Friday, AAP Delhi convener Gopal Rai announced to put a hold on scheduled nominations of its candidates in order to give final chance to the Congress to take a call on alliance.