AAP and Congress decide on a 4:3 seat-sharing arrangement for Delhi’s Lok Sabha seats

NEW DELHI: As part of a seat-sharing arrangement that is now being finalized by leaders of the two parties, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is expected to run for four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and hand up the other three to its alliance partner, the Congress, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.

A Congress representative said that the parties had reached a consensus over the formula and that negotiations were nearing completion regarding the seats that each party would want to fight. As per a proposed deal, the AAP will compete the Lok Sabha seats of New Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi, and North West, while the Congress would fight the seats of East, Chandani Chowk, and North East.

Atishi, an AAP minister, opted not to comment on the specifics of the talks. “We hope to close the deal, and the talks are ongoing,” she said.

The 4-3 formula, according to a senior Delhi Congress politician, is set in stone, but the seats that the two parties are fighting for may alter.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now holds all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. The BJP has been winning all seven seats since 2014.

When the AAP and the Congress ran separate Lok Sabha campaigns in 2019, the AAP finished second with two seats and the Congress with five.

The AAP has brought one seat to the Congress table in exchange for negotiations, pointing to the alliance partner’s performance in past municipal and assembly elections.

“The Congress party does not have any seats in the Delhi assembly or the Lok Sabha. The Congress only secured nine seats out of 250 wards in the 2022 MCD election, according to AAP national general secretary (organization) Sandeep Pathak, who made the announcement on February 13.

In the 70-member Delhi legislature, the AAP has 62 MLAs.

Based on the available evidence, the Congress party is not deserving of a single seat, even when considering merit. However, data on its own is useless. We are prepared to provide the Congress one seat in accordance with the alliance dharma and out of respect,” Pathak had said.

For many weeks, AAP and Congress, members of the opposition INDIA group, have been in discussions over seat sharing for a number of states, including Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, and Delhi, but little progress has been made.

In an attempt to form an alliance out of fear of losing the election, AAP and Congress, according to Delhi BJP leader Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, didn’t trust one another.”The Congress and AAP are going to form an alliance, which is nothing more than politics of opportunism, despite the serious trust crisis between them,” he remarked.

The people of Delhi have decided to give PM Narendra Modi all seven seats again because the Modi government is committed to their growth and development, unlike the AAP, which is merely trying to use the opportunity to make its political expansion, according to Bidhuri, who said that the alliance would not affect the BJP.