AAP and Congress make U- turn to come close
New Delhi, Dec 17 (IBNS) : Shedding the bitterness that once kept the two parties on political poles, Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress are reportedly heading for a hunky dory by initiating talks for an alliance for the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital as well for Haryana and Punjab in the next Lok Sabha elections.
According to media reports, the move gained ground after the December 9 meet of the Opposition parties in a bid to cobble up a united front against the Bharaitya Janata Party.Though there has been no official confirmation so far, reports say back-channel talks between the two sides have already made a headway with a 4:3 formula in Delhi, 9:4 in Punjab and 7:3 in Haryana, leading to a total of 30 seats.
From the Aam Aadmi Party's side, talks are reportedly being held by a senior party leader and member of the AAP's apex decision-making body, the Parliamentary Affairs Committee.
What seems to have prompted the two sides to make the move is the outcome of the recently held Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh-all long held bastions of the BJP where the saffron party lost power giving a whiff of a breakthrough the Opposition could make in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by forging an alliance.
The AAP and the Congress have been at loggerheads in Delhi and Punjab. Until August, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that voting for the Congress was akin to voting for the BJP. However, the drubbing the AAP suffered in Haryana and Punjab Assembly elections, thawed his ambitions beyond Delhi and restrained him from too much BJP bashing that he indulged in before.
The AAP had boycotted the poll for electing the deputy chairman to the Rajya Sabha in August, stating that it was upset over the Congress not asking for its support for the joint Opposition candidate fielded by it.
The AAP and the Congress have more or less the same voter base in the national capital.
Since the 2013 Assembly polls in Delhi, the vote share of the AAP and the Congress had oscillated, but the BJP's vote percentage remained the same.
In 2013, the BJP bagged 31 seats and secured 33.07 per cent of the vote share while the Congress got 24.55 per cent with eight seats. The AAP, in its debut performance got 29.49 per cent of votes and bagged 28 seats.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP swept the elections scoring 7-0. The AAP came second while the Congress stood third in vote share. However, in six seats, the votes of the AAP and the Congress combined were much more than that of the BJP.
In 2015, the AAP registered a stupendous victory, winning 67 seats and 54.34 per cent vote share while the Congress drew a blank and got only 9.65 per cent of the vote share. However, the BJP's vote share remained more or less the same to 32.09 per cent, despite the drubbing.
In the April 2017 Rajouri Garden bypoll, though the BJP wrested the seat from the AAP, the Congress came second and the AAP candidate lost his deposit.
In the 2017 MCD polls in June, the Congress's vote share rose sharply to 21.28 percent, while the AAP bagged around 26 per cent, less than half of what it got in 2015 Assembly polls.
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