New Delhi: Leaders of INDIA bloc parties Congress and AAP will hold further discussions Friday on seat-sharing in Delhi and in states for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, sources said.
The discussions will take place at a meeting at the residence of senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik, a source in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said.
The leaders of the parties had met last week at Wasnik’s residence on the seat-sharing issue but declined having any substantial talks. The meeting had lasted for nearly two and a half hours.
The INDIA bloc has been formed by opposition parties to take on the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha elections.
Tuesday, senior AAP leader and the party’s Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai had said that his party has stated its stand to contest the polls in five states, including Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Goa, and Delhi in alliance with the Congress.
He had said that an official stand on the alliance was needed to be put forth by both the sides.
The sources claimed that the AAP wishes to contest on four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and has an alliance with the Congress in states also. The Congress is willing to contest Lok Sabha polls in the North East Delhi, Chandani Chowk and New Delhi parliamentary constituencies, they said.
The formal discussion on seat sharing will be held in the second meeting between the two parties on Friday, said the source in the AAP.
In the previous meeting with Congress leaders, AAP was represented by its national general secretary (organisation) Sandeep Pathak and ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bhardwaj.
The sources said AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha who was absent in the first meeting will take part in the talks Friday.
PTI