Congress rules out any alliance with AAP in parliamentary elections | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: State Congress president Devender Yadav on Friday said the party would go solo in the Delhi assembly elections and ruled out any possibility of an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party, adding that the party had started collecting feedback on potential candidates.
AAP had made it clear after the Lok Sabha polls that its alliance with Congress was limited to the general elections. After the Haryana polls, it reiterated its decision to go solo.
“The decision to go solo was taken after the Lok Sabha results and the party’s official stand even now is very clear that we will fight alone on all 70 seats and there will be no alliance,” Yadav told TOI. He said the decision to go solo came from the lessons learned from the Lok Sabha results, where AAP and Congress had decided to contest on four and three seats respectively. The alliance lost all seven seats to the BJP.
“We would have done better and even won one or two seats if we had not allied with AAP. Our Nyay Yatras in all constituencies also show that there is intensity anti-establishment against AAP. Why should we shoulder the weight of the ruling party’s anti-incumbency by even exploring an alliance? The Congress can better fight for all 70 seats on its own and that is what we are doing,” Yadav said.
Congress is planning a show of force at the end of its convention Nyay Yatra after reaching all 70 seats on December 6. Senior party leaders are expected to join the programme.
“We have started selecting candidates at the district level and gathering feedback from our leaders. We will soon revive our state-level election commission to shortlist candidates,” Yadav said. The nominated names are sent to the central screening committee.
On November 24, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had approved the composition of the screening committee. The panel includes former Mandsaur MP Meenakshi Natarajan as chairman and two members: Lok Sabha MP from Saharanpur Imran Masood and AICC national secretary Pradeep Narwal. The AICC in-charge, the Pradesh Congress president and all AICC secretaries in charge of Delhi are ex-officio members of the screening committee.