Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders on Monday met to discuss for the first time, seat sharing arrangements for the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, with the former expressing the desire to contest four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in the Capital, and the latter seeking to expand the scope of the discussion to include an alliance in Gujarat, Goa, and Haryana.
The Congress leaders, however, told AAP representatives that their current mandate was limited to discussing seat sharing in Delhi. Specifically, HT learns, the Congress leaders made sure to not even mention Punjab, given the reservations of the party’s local unit against an alliance with the AAP.
The Congress was represented by the head of its national alliance committee, Mukul Wasnik, and panel members, including former Union minister Salman Khurshid, former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, the party’s Delhi unit chief Arvinder Singh Lovely and senior leader Mohan Prakash, were present.
The AAP was represented by Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak and Delhi cabinet ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj. A senior Congress leader present at the meeting said the two sides “reaffirmed to work in an alliance” but avoided talk of specific seats. That will be taken up in the next meeting, this person added.
“It was a good meeting. On behalf of AAP, Delhi chief minister had sent senior leaders. And the national alliance committee formed by Congress president (Mallikarjun) Kharge ji met here… we discussed for two hours on a host of issues including how to fight in different seats in the Lok Sabha. We will continue our talks. And in few days, we will meet again and will try to give a final shape to our seat sharing,” Wasnik said.
The AAP leadership didn’t comment on the negotiations. But leaders aware of the matter said that the party furnished electoral data since 2019 to demand seats in Gujarat, Goa, and Haryana.
Wasnik, however, refused to divulge the details of the talk. “I can’t comment on what issues were discussed. Please wait for a few days. Together we will contest the elections with vigorous preparation and defeat BJP,” he said.
In an internal meeting of the Congress, its Delhi unit leaders had told the alliance committee that they want to contest four seats in the national capital. Neither party has a sitting member of the lower house from Delhi; all seven Lok Sabha MPs in Delhi are from the BJP. IUn the 2019 election, the Congress ended up with a 22.5% vote share in the state, and the AAP with 18%. But AAP has 62 of the 70 seats in the union territory’s assembly.
“It was the first formal seat sharing meeting of the two sides which have been opposed to each other till about a year ago. So, it was important to listen to each other’s point of view and avoiding rushing into seat negotiations. One can call it a confidence building exercise where sharing of perception was important,” said the first leader present in the meeting.
On Sunday, the Congress alliance panel met JDU and RJD leaders in Patna, formally kickstarting seat sharing talks with its allies. Some INDIA allies, including the Trinamool Congress, JDU and AAP were becoming impatient with the delay, which is crucial to the alliance’s prospects and existence.
Trinamool’s top leadership has already offered two seats to the Congress in West Bengal but the state unit is unhappy with the offer. Congress’ Bengal unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has argued that the Congress won those two seats in 2019 even without the TMC’s support.
(With inputs from agencies)