New Delhi: The talks for an alliance between the AAP and the Congress ended “inconclusively” after the grand old party refused a tie-up in Haryana, senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh said Wednesday.
However, sources claimed that the talks are very much on and a decision on an alliance might be taken in the next couple of days. Singh, a Rajya Sabha MP, said he held talks with senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and PC Chacko, and proposed an alliance of 6:3:1 in Haryana on Tuesday. But, Azad claimed that there were not talks on Haryana and that “we keep meeting parliamentarians every now and then”. In Haryana, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has proposed to fight from one seat, while offering the Congress and the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) six and three seats, respectively.
“Congress leaders Azad and (Bhupinder Singh) Hooda have refused to form an alliance in Haryana. We were ready to give three seats to the Congress in Delhi if they had agreed to form an alliance in Haryana too,” Singh said. “The talks ended inconclusively between the two parties after the Congress refused a tie-up in Haryana,” he said. However, Azad, who is also the Congress’s Haryana in-charge, claimed there were no talks with the AAP on Haryana and downplayed his meeting with Singh. “There is no talk of an alliance with the AAP in Haryana,” he told reporters when asked about the issue.
On an alliance in Delhi, the Congress leader said city party in-charge Chacko should be asked it. Delhi and Haryana are separate entities, he said. When asked about his meeting with Singh, Azad said, “We keep meeting parliamentarians every now and then.” Haryana Congress leader Hooda said there is no question of any alliance with the AAP in the state. But, if the party takes a decision in national interest the state unit will stand by it, he said.
On Tuesday, the AAP had said it was ready to have further discussions with the Congress and that it had appointed a representative to take the matter forward. The AAP has appointed Singh to hold alliance talks with the Congress and others. The party has proposed a 10:5:3 ratio in Haryana, Delhi and Chandigarh in which 10 seats are for the Congress, five seats for the AAP and three seats for the JJP, Singh said.
There has been an uncertainty over formation of an alliance between the AAP and the Congress for a few months now. On Monday, amid a blame-game over seat-sharing in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal 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.
