New Delhi: The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday (February 24) ended months of speculation surrounding its fate within the INDIA alliance and announced seat-sharing arrangements for Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat, Goa, and Chandigarh for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, while deciding to fight solo in Punjab.“In the Delhi Lok Sabha, there are seven seats on which AAP will fight on four seats. These are New Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi, and East Delhi. Congress will fight on three seats – Chandni Chowk, North East, and North West,” announced Congress’s National Alliance Committee convenor Mukul Wasnik at a joint press conference of the two parties in the national capital.“In Gujarat, with its 26 Lok Sabha seats, Congress will contest 24, while AAP will contest two, including Bharuch and Bhavnagar. In Haryana, which has 10 seats, Congress will fight on the nine seats, and AAP will fight on one, which is Kurukshetra. Long rounds of talks were held on the Chandigarh seat. It was finally decided that the Congress candidate will contest this seat. Detailed discussions also took place regarding Goa, and it was decided that both seats will be fought by the Congress.”Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely, former Congress general secretary Deepak Babaria, AAP MLAs Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj. and AAP MP Sandeep Pathak were present at the press conference.The two parties have opted to contest the elections separately in Punjab, where AAP holds power and Congress serves as the Opposition.“The two parties (AAP and Congress) have mutually agreed to contest the (Lok Sabha) elections in Punjab separately,” said Pathak.AAP had earlier announced that it would go solo and fight on all 13 seats in Punjab.The seat-sharing arrangement announcement comes after AAP had alleged, in separate press conferences on Thursday and Friday, that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government is planning to arrest Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal through the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), if the party proceeds with its alliance with the Congress for the Lok Sabha elections.Wasnik said that it is not just AAP or Kejriwal who are facing such pressure tactics from the BJP.“This is not limited to AAP or AAP’s leader Arvind Kejriwal. The kind of circumstances that the BJP has created today in the country is a challenge to democracy. Using CBI, ED, Income Tax on everyone to put pressure is the kind of politics that the BJP is doing, which is dangerous for Indian democracy, and not just Congress and AAP, but the people of India will fight against it,” he said.The seat-sharing talks between the two parties were shrouded in speculation for months. The final shape to seat-sharing arrangements came only weeks after AAP threw the gauntlet earlier this month and offered only one seat to the Congress in the capital while saying it does not “deserve a single seat on merit”. While the national leadership of the Congress admitted to a delay in seat-sharing talks, its Delhi unit said that it is “energised” to fight on all seven seats in the national capital.Pathak said on Saturday that the two parties have set aside their political interests and have come together in the interest of the nation as the “intention of this alliance is that it is the country which is important, party is always secondary.”“Today, the situation that the country is going through – the manner in which the BJP government is finishing all institutions one by one, the elections are being stolen, and to steal elections and win elections, Opposition leaders are being put in jail to win elections, the manner in which injustice is being done with farmers, the manner in which people of the country are suffering from unemployment and inflation, the country needs an honest and a strong alternate. Keeping this in mind, setting aside our own political interests and keeping in mind the interest of the nation, we have come together in this alliance,” he said.“This election will not be fought in the manner that Congress will contest from here and AAP will contest from there. INDIA will contest this election. On some seats, Congress is putting its candidates, and on some seats, AAP is fielding candidates. I believe that the BJP’s calculations will be overturned after this alliance and we will fight and win these elections with the support of the people of this country.”
