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Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia with party’s Delhi convener Gopal Rai and party candidate Atishi addresses the media, at the party office in New Delhi on Tuesday.[/caption]
New Delhi, Apr 16 (PTI): The AAP is digging in its heels on the issue of alliance and is not ready to give more than two seats in Delhi to the Congress if the alliance is limited to the national capital, sources said.
A meeting was held at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence on Tuesday and was attended by senior party leaders of Manish Sisodia, Gopal Rai, Sanjay Singh and Satyendra Kumar Jain.
Following the meeting, the party said it is ready to have further discussion with Congress and has appointed a representative to take the matter forward. AAP has appointed Singh to hold alliance talks with Congress but no representative has been hired by Congress yet.
AAP sources said if Congress wants alliance only in Delhi then it has to be in the 5:2 ratio and if an alliance is sealed for both Delhi and Haryana then the ratio can be 4:3 in the national capital and 6:3:1 in Haryana.
In the 6:3:1 ratio, Congress would contest six seats, Jannayak Janata Party three seats while AAP one seat, the sources said.
“The talks of alliance between AAP and Congress are presently stalled,” the sources said.
“Alliance talks cannot be carried out on Twitter. It has to be discussed properly between the two parties and for that we have appointed our representative,” said AAP’s Rai.
“It was decided (in the meeting) that we would convince Congress that contesting together on 18 seats of Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh would mean a definite loss for BJP,” Rai added.
Kejriwal has clearly said that the Modi-Shah duo “is a danger for the country and till the end, we will try to stop it,” Singh told reporters after the meeting.
“An alliance with Congress would send the message that Modi would not be becoming the prime minister again,” he added.
Amid a continuing blame game over seat-sharing in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal Monday engaged in a public spat, with the Congress president accusing the AAP of making a “U-turn” over alliance talks, prompting the Delhi chief minister to hit back at him.
Gandhi had said while the doors of his party are open, time is running out, but Kejriwal slammed him, questioning what U-turn was he talking about as the talks were still on.
The Congress has offered the AAP a 4:3 seat-sharing formula four Lok Sabha seats for the ruling party and three for itself while the AAP has proposed 5:2 ratio( five for itself and two for the grand old party).
The Congress has accused the Kejriwal-led outfit of backing out on its commitment, as it is demanding seats in Goa, Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh, besides Delhi for a pre-poll understanding with the Congress.
In response to Gandhi’s tweet, AAP’s Singh said, “Congress is not giving even a single seat to AAP in Punjab where it has four MPs and 20 MLAs and in Haryana.”
“In Delhi, where the Congress has zero MPs and MLAs, it is demanding three seats. Is this how agreement happens? Why do not you want to stop the BJP in other states,” he asked.
The AAP has announced its candidates on the seven parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, while the Congress has finalised names of its candidates which could be announced soon.
Meanwhile, AAP said its Lok Sabha candidates would file their nominations from Thursday.
Rai said the party’s west Delhi candidate Balbir Singh Jakhar would file his nomination on Thursday while Chandni Chowk candidate Pankaj Gupta, East Delhi candidate Atishi and North West Delhi candidate Gugan Singh would file their nominations on Saturday.
On Monday, South Delhi candidate Raghav Chadha, North East candidate Dilip Pandey and New Delhi candidate Brajesh Goel would file their nomination, Rai said.