Congress, AAP seat sharing talks for Delhi back on track

New Delhi: Congress and AAP appear to be inching towards resolving the stalemate over seat sharing in Delhi where the Arvind Kejriwal-led party had upped the ante saying that it will leave only one seat for the ally.

The sign that the two parties would be able to move forward with seat-sharing talks came as sources said Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal held a meeting in the capital on Sunday. Both also were later seen at a lunch hosted by senior lawyer and Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

 In more good news, former Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath, who gave anxious moments to the Congress leadership during the day, is learnt to have told the leadership that he has no plans to leave. Amid speculations of the veteran leader switching to the BJP, a group of MLAs loyal to him flew down to Delhi from Bhopal. Congress General Secretary and Madhya Pradesh in-charge Jitendra Singh is in touch with Kamal Nath, sources said.

Sajjan Singh Verma, a close aide of Kamal Nath, told reporters in Delhi, "Kamal Nath said that his focus right now is the Lok Sabha elections and he is looking at caste equations. He said he has not thought about leaving the party." Madhya Pradesh Congress president Jitu Patwari also said Kamal Nath has told him that the reports of his exit were all speculations and conspiracies.

Reports of Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari and Navjyot Singh Sidhu leaving the Congress for BJP also added some anxious moments. While his close aides denied any such plans, Tewari posted on X the video of his latest speech in Lok Sabha during the recently concluded Budget Session attacking the Modi government.

The flurry of activities on seat sharing comes days after the AAP upped the ante saying Congress deserve only one out of seven seats in Delhi where the latter is hoping to fight at least three seats in alliance. Congress sources said they saw it as pressure tactics while both agreed to fight each other in Punjab.

Kejriwal said the decision to fight against each other in Punjab was taken mutually and there was “no bad blood” between them. On Haryana, Kejriwal said they had sought seats while former state Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda referred to “unilateral” comments from AAP.

A top Congress leader told DH, “there should be an alliance. The efforts are in that direction. It will happen.”

Kejriwal, whose Cabinet colleague Atishi was also present at the lunch, said, “we are in talks…The BJP will have it easy if there is no alliance.”

Referring to allies like JD(U) and RLD leaving the alliance, Kharge said, “people who have decided to leave will leave. He (Kejriwal) is sitting next to me. He is near, he will remain near.” When asked about reports about Kamal Nath leaving the party, he refused to respond.

Kharge also had a meeting with JMM leader and Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren here. After the meeting, Kharge said, “We need to work together. There are very few people left who have the courage to fight against the anti-democratic and anti-constitutional policies of the Modi government.”

On defections, Kejriwal said that half of the BJP will join other parties if the amendments brought in by the Modi government are removed. “You will see Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan launch their parties by evening,” he said.