Despite former Chief Minister and Delhi Congress president Sheila Dikshit making her Opposition known to Congress leadership about having any truck with AAP, many of her party colleagues are trying to stitch an alliance with.
Sources close to her said, that she has conveyed her views vis-à-vis AAP as she feels that Congress is gaining ground and any pre-poll alliance with AAP would detrimental to the party’s interest. But certain senior leaders are bating in the favour of alliance with AAP, as they are eying Lok Sabhat seats to resuscitate their political careers.
According to sources, West Delhi, Chandni Chowk and New Delhi are the three seats on which AAP has been eager for an alliance as it does not have strong candidates.
“In New Delhi, Maken, who is a former Member of Parliament (MP) from the seat remains the front-runner, while in Chandni Chowk Kapil Sibal could be the Congress face. Like East Delhi, South Delhi was another deal-breaker for Congress, as the AAP has fielded its candidate Raghav Chadha, while Congress has Yoganand Shastri and Ramesh Kumar, brother of Sajjan Kumar, as its probable candidates in East Delhi,’ said a senior political analyst on condition of anonymity.
During a senior party leaders meeting held earlier this month with Rahul Gandhi at his residence, Ajay Maken and All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Delhi PC Chacko were the only two leaders, who backed the idea of an alliance with AAP. However, six other leaders- Shiela Dikshit, Subhash Chopra, Arvinder Singh Lovely, J P Aggarwal, Haroon Yusuf and Rajesh Lilothia voted against it prompting the party president to go with the majority vote.
“Congress is taking a big risk by fighting alone in Delhi. If AAP manages to win a few seats the party will gain a fresh lease of life before next year’s Delhi assembly polls.
But the 2017 MCD polls were BJP, AAP and Congress recorded a 36 per cent, 26 per cent and 21 per cent vote share points to a minor Congress revival at AAP expense.
In a national election Congress could turn more attractive to voters than a regional party like AAP,” said S P Arora, a senior political analyst and an expert of Delhi politics.
