Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has expressed openness to forming an alliance with the Congress for the upcoming Haryana Assembly elections. This follows reports that Rahul Gandhi, the former Congress president, is seeking opinions from party leaders regarding a potential partnership with AAP in the poll-bound state.
Senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh welcomed the prospect of an alliance, emphasizing that the primary objective is to defeat the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Haryana. However, Singh noted that a final decision would only be made after consulting with AAP’s national leader, Arvind Kejriwal, who is currently in jail in connection with the alleged scam in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy.
“We welcome it…our priority is to defeat the BJP. Our Haryana in-charge Sandeep Pathak and state unit president Sushil Gupta will take a final decision and inform Arvind Kejriwal about it. A decision will be taken accordingly,” Singh said, according to ANI.
The discussion about a possible alliance was reportedly brought up by Rahul Gandhi during a meeting of the Congress’s Central Election Committee (CEC) on Monday. With the BJP having been in power in Haryana since 2014 and facing anti-incumbency, the idea is to avoid splitting the anti-BJP vote, sources suggest.
At the national level, AAP and Congress are both part of the 28-member opposition coalition known as the INDIA bloc. The two parties have previously collaborated in various elections, including those in Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Goa, and Haryana for the Lok Sabha polls. However, historical tensions persist, as AAP emerged from the 2011 anti-corruption movement that targeted the then Congress-led central government and has since displaced Congress from power in Delhi and Punjab.
Despite these past frictions, the potential alliance in Haryana could be a strategic move to consolidate votes against the BJP. In Punjab, however, the two parties contested the Lok Sabha elections separately.
The Haryana Assembly elections, which will decide the fate of the 90-seat legislative body, are scheduled for October 5, with the results expected on October 8. Meanwhile, assembly elections in Delhi are set to take place early next year.
