In a major blow to the INDIA bloc, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday that his party will not be in any alliances in the Delhi Assembly polls, which is slated for next year. The remarks from the AAP supremo came at a press conference on Sunday.
The political landscape of Delhi has changed dramatically in recent months ahead of the polls. The union territory has already witnessed several high-profile defections, with many Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders jumping ship to AAP. “AAP will have no alliance for assembly polls in Delhi,” the former Delhi CM responded to a query at a press conference, PTI reported.
It is pertinent to note that AAP and Congress have been part of the opposition INDIA bloc and fought the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi together earlier this year. Both parties drew a blank, with the BJP winning all seats.
The cracks between both parties were visible after they failed to reach a seat-sharing agreement ahead of the Haryana Assembly polls in October, despite several rounds of talks. This year, AAP was marred by a plethora of legal cases, which put the party’s top leaders behind bars.
After getting bail in the liquor policy case, Kejriwal resigned from the office of Delhi Chief Minister and passed on the baton to Atishi. Hence, the Delhi elections will likely test AAP’s governance credentials against the BJP’s efforts to expand its influence in the capital. Meanwhile, the Congress will now try to find its existence in the state, which the party lost in 2013.
This is not the first time AAP rejected allying with Congress. Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Kejriwal had ruled out a tie-up with the Congress in Punjab and announced that his party would contest all 13 seats on its own. In Delhi, the ruling party currently holds 62 seats in the 70-member legislature.
Earlier this week, AAP announced its first list of 11 candidates. Interestingly, 6 leaders out of them switched from BJP and Congress and joined Kejriwal’s party. During the Sunday presser, the AAP chief also addressed the incident in which a liquid substance was thrown at him during a ‘padyatra’ on Saturday.
He slammed the Central government and said that the incident indicated a complete breakdown of the law and order situation in the city. “I had this expectation that Home Minister Amit Shah would take some action after I raised the issue (law & order)… But, instead of that, I was being attacked during my ‘padyatra’. Liquid was thrown at me, it was harmless, but it could have been harmful,” Kejriwal exclaimed. Congress and the INDIA bloc are yet to respond to Kejriwal’s decision.
With inputs from PTI.
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AAP to go solo, Kejriwal rules out forming alliance with Congress in Delhi Assembly Election
