New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party Wednesday, a day after debacle faced by Congress in Haryana, said it will contest the Delhi Assembly polls due in February independently without any alliance, even as Congress too ruled out any pact with the party.
The AAP also criticised the Congress for not heeding to calls for alliance in Haryana due to its “overconfidence”. “We will contest independently in Delhi Assembly polls. The AAP is capable of fighting against an overconfident Congress and an arrogant BJP on its own,” chief spokesperson of the party Priyanka Kakkar told PTI.
In a statement, Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav said that the party is on a strong wicket to contest the Assembly elections on its own without any tie up with the “tainted” AAP.
He said the party had no credibility left after all its top leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, were arrested and jailed in the liquor scam.
Congress, a favourite in Haryana Assembly elections, lost to the BJP Tuesday.
The AAP tried to have an alliance with the Congress in Haryana but it thwarted any attempts, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said in a press conference.
“We followed the ‘Gathbandhan Dharm’ and tried for alliance with them to end the BJP’s 10 years’ misrule in Haryana. But they did not form an alliance and contested independently saying AAP was not a factor in the state,” Singh said.
The talks of pre-poll alliance between Congress and AAP petered out due to differences over a seat-sharing formula. The AAP wanted to contest 8-9 seats in Haryana in alliance with Congress that was not ready to give more than 3-4 seats to the party.
Singh pointed out the significance of alliance, saying the vote share of INDIA bloc in Lok Sabha polls was 47 percent in Haryana this year when AAP-Congress fought together.
Kakkar said Congress was defeated in Haryana because of its “overconfidence.” “Congress is overconfident and feels that it can defeat the BJP on its own,” she said.
Kakkar said even though Congress has zero Assembly seats in Delhi, the AAP gave it three Lok Sabha constituencies to contest earlier this year.
She claimed that Congress thwarted all efforts by the INDIA bloc to forge an alliance in Haryana and “didn’t feel it necessary to take its ally along with them.” The AAP that contested 89 of the 90 Assembly seats in Haryana also faced a rout and all its candidates except one could not save their deposits.
PTI