NEW DELHI: In a significant political development, the Aam Aadmi Party has reportedly offered three Lok Sabha seats to the Congress in the National Capital to take on the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The move comes a day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal praised former PM Manmohan Singh, saying that the country needs an “educated PM” like him.
But the AAP offer seems to have not gone well with the Delhi Congress, whose chief Ajay Maken declined it saying, “when the people of Delhi are continuously rejecting the Kejriwal government, why should we come to their rescue”.
On Thursday, Kejriwal had praised Manmohan Singh. This led to speculation in political circles that the two parties were cosying up to each other to put up a united fight against the BJP.
Reacting to Maken’s tweet, AAP spokesperson Dilip Pandey said it was the Congress that had approached the AAP and not the other way around.
“Ajay Makenji, some senior Congress leaders are in touch with the Aam Aadmi Party and they want our help in Punjab and Haryana, and a seat in Delhi,” Pandey tweeted responding to Maken.
Two AAP leaders ruled out talks with the Congress at this moment, saying that the two parties were currently fighting for the same set of voters.
The BJP in its response to the reports said that the news doesn’t surprise the party.
“The reports of Congress and Aam Aadmi Party’s coalition neither surprises us nor does it distract us. The tweets of Congress and AAP leaders in this context are a gameplan towards creating a political atmosphere for a coalition. It shows that both the parties now realise that the BJP is the first choice of people of Delhi. The Congress and AAP coalition will be an immoral one with a motive to mislead the people of Delhi,” Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari said.
