Congress-AAP reach consensus on alliance in Delhi, Haryana, announcement soon: Sources

The chop and change seriality on tying up with each other for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have reportedly ironed out all their differences and reached a consensus on alliance in Delhi and Haryana. According to sources, the Congress and the AAP have decided to contest the general elections in Delhi as well as in Haryana together and an announcement regarding the same will be made soon.

Sources said that the Congress party, that has not included the promise of full statehood for Delhi in their manifesto, will amend it and include the long-standing demand by the Aam Aadmi Party. However, the two parties failed to decide on alliance in Punjab as Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was not in favour of tying up with the AAP.

Although both Congress and AAP continued to state that they will fight the national elections on their own, senior leaders of both parties are still discussing the modalities, the sources said. Speaking to News Nation, Congress spokesperson Meem Afzal also hinted at something similar and said that the aim of both parties was to defeat the BJP.

The speculation of a tie-up between both the parties also got a boost with AAP's Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh meeting All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Delhi PC Chacko on Wednesday evening.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP has proposed to give two seats to Congress which has instead demanded three - New Delhi, Chandni Chowk and North East Delhi, sources in both the parties claimed. The rationale behind an alliance between the two parties is that together they polled more votes than the BJP which swept the 2014 Lok Sabha elections winning all the seven seats in Delhi.

The Delhi Congress is divided over the issue. While four former Delhi Congress presidents -- Ajay Maken, Subhash Chopra, Tajdar Babar and Arvinder Singh Lovely -- favoured an alliance with Kejriwal's party, former chief minister Shiela Dikshit and three working presidents, Devender Yadav, Rajesh Lilothia, and Haroon Yusuf, maintained their stand against the alliance.