New Delhi: Ending speculations of an alliance with the Congress, the Aam Admi Party on Saturday announced names of party candidates on six of seven seats in Delhi for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Delhi AAP convener Gopal Rai said the party will field Atishi from East Delhi, Raghav Chaddha from South Delhi, Pankaj Gupta from Chandni Chowk, Dilip Pandey from North East Delhi, Gugan Singh from North West Delhi and Brajesh Goel from the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat. The six candidates were earlier appointed as in charge on the respective Lok Sabha seats.
The candidate for the seventh and the final seat, West Delhi, is still being discussed and will be announced soon, he said at a press conference.
The announcement of the candidates comes just a day after the Congress got in touch with the AAP over forming an alliance and started discussions for a seat sharing agreement for the forthcoming elections in Delhi.
According to sources, the Congress’ top brass gave its nod to initiating the alliance talks with AAP, but there was stiff resistance from the Delhi unit of the party, which wanted to contest alone.
The AAP had been sending feelers to the Congress leadership for a pre-poll tie-up for quite a while, but was rebuffed.
Delhi chief minister Kejriwal had in a recent public meeting said that he was "tired" of convincing the Congress for an alliance in the Lok Sabha elections to defeat the BJP, but it was not understanding the issue.
"We are tired of convincing the Congress to form an alliance, but they do not understand. If there is an alliance, the BJP will lose all the seven Lok Sabha seats it currently has in Delhi," Kejriwal said at a recent rally.
"I don't know what they have in their minds," he further said.
Opposition leaders such as TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, at a meeting held at NCP leader Sharad Pawar’s house, had also urged Rahul Gandhi to forge an alliance with AAP in Delhi but proving the Delhi unit of the Congress, led by former CM Sheila Dikshit, proved tricky.
Dikshit had on Friday held meetings with three working presidents of the party to discuss the issue of alliance, where they again decided not to join hands.
Dikshit and the three working presidents were of the firm view that no alliance should be entertained with AAP and decided to convey this message to the party high command," a senior Delhi Congress leader said.
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