No Congress alliance with AAP, says Sheila Dikshit after Rahul Gandhi meets party leaders

Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit ruled out an alliance with the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday. The announcement by the former Delhi chief minister came following a meeting with Congress president Rahul Gandhi. The former chief minister of Delhi said, "A unanimous decision has been taken that there will be no alliance in Delhi." Earlier, speculations were rife that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party and the Congress have reached an agreement to forge an alliance in Delhi. However, senior AAP leader Gopal Rai has said that both parties have not reached any agreement.   

On Saturday, the Aam Aadmi Party had declared candidates for six of the seven seats for Lok Sabha elections 2019 in Delhi. The AAP has fielded its top leaders like Atishi from East Delhi, Raghav Chaddha from South Delhi, Dilip Pandey from North East Delhi, Gugan Singh from North West Delhi, Brajesh Goel from New Delhi and Pankaj Gupta from Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha seat.

"We won 66 out of 70 seats in Assembly elections. We will try to make a similar presence felt during the Lok Sabha elections," the Delhi Employment Minister said. However, the candidate for the seventh Lok Sabha seat - West Delhi - will be declared later as the party was still discussing potential names, Rai said during the press conference.

According to news Nation’s Opinion Poll, the recent defeats of the BJP at the hands of the Congress party in its traditional strongholds like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh may not affect the latter’s performance in Delhi for the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha election. According to the opinion poll, the Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to get 39 per cent of vote share whereas the Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party might end up getting 31 per cent of vote share. The Congress party may get 15 per cent of the vote share.