No alliance with Congress in 2025, AAP decides after key meeting

Responding to a question regarding an alliance for Delhi Assembly polls, Rai said: “It is very clear from the beginning that the INDIA bloc had come together for the Lok Sabha. We have fought the Lok Sabha elections together with honesty. There is no alliance for the Delhi assembly elections. And we will fight this battle in Delhi with the people and win it.”

Reacting to the development, a senior Delhi Congress leader said the party, which had been “left with no other option”, was ready to contest the Delhi Assembly elections on its own. However, the leader expressed the possibility of the Congress’s high command taking up the issue with the AAP’s national leadership in the coming days. An AAP leader said that it was clear from the beginning that the alliance would not be for states, and only for the Lok Sabha.

“As the party had announced in relation to the seat-sharing agreement with the Congress for the Lok Sabha polls in Delhi, the alliance was only for the general elections which have now concluded,” a senior AAP leader said.

AAP’s stance is based on its performance in the 2015 and 2020 Assembly polls, where it got 67 and 62 seats out of 70. Congress has not won a single seat in the assembly since 2015. The Congress leader said: “What option have they (the AAP) left us? The Delhi unit is more than ready to contest the Delhi Assembly election alone and on each of the 70 segments. Be that as it may, the high command may take up the matter with the AAP’s senior leadership later,” the leader said.

An AAP insider, questioning the timing of the announcement, underlined that the AAP’s decision as well as announcement threw up the larger implication of the party severing ties with the INDIA bloc within days of the Lok Sabha election results being announced.

Meanwhile, indicating that the AAP’s focus had shifted to the Capital and that putting up resistance to the Centre’s policy of “interfering” in its affairs and “snatching its rights” would underline the party’s political strategy for the 2025 Assembly elections, Rai said the party’s MLAs had been instructed to hold meetings with local workers in their respective Assembly segments on Sunday to chalk out which local works and projects needed attention.

Indicating that AAP may raise the issue of statehood again, he said that the issue of overruling an elected government will come into focus again after BJP failed to get a majority. Accusing the Centre of “attacking the rights of Delhi”, “snatching the rights of the people” and arresting Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and senior party leaders, Rai said: “Everyone is confident that the Central government will reconsider this in accordance with the mandate of the people and will change the policy of usurping the rights of Delhi.”

The meeting was attended by AAP National General Secretary (Organisation) Sandeep Pathak, Rajya Sabha members Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha, N D Gupta and ministers Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Kailash Gahlot, Imran Hussain and other party MLAs.

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