Congress-AAP at loggerheads after Alka Lamba claims on contesting all Delhi Lok Sabha seats

New Delhi, Aug 17: The Congress was left red-faced as Aam Aadmi Party threatened to boycott the next meeting of the opposition's INDIA meeting. This came after Delhi Congress leader Alka Lamba announced that the grand old party will prepare for a strong contest on all 7 Lok Sabha seats in the national capital.

 

 

 

"Alka Lamba is a spokesperson but she is not an authorized spokesperson for talking on such important issues. I have said as an in-charge that there were no such discussions in the meeting today. I refute Alka Lamba's statement," said AICC in-charge Delhi Congress Deepak Babaria.

 

"After the completion of today's meeting I had clearly said that there were no discussions regarding elections or alliance in the meeting. I also said that any discussion of the INDIA alliance will only take place at the level of Mallikarjun Kharge ji," he added.

 

Deepak Babaria went on to call Alka Lamba "immature spokesperson" and blamed the media for distorting her statement to help the BJP. "The Aam Aadmi Party should understand that there are attempts to provoke. It should not fall into this trap," he said.

 

The Congress has also called a meeting of Delhi leaders at party headquarters.

 

Earlier, Congress leader Alka Lamba told news agency PTI, "We have been given orders contest on all 7 (Lok Sabha) seats in Delhi. The meeting lasted for four hours and was attended by 40 leaders who put forth their opinion. The talks focused on strengthening the Congress in Delhi" referring to the meeting convened by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge in the capital.

 

Responding to Lamba's claims, AAP chief national spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar, said, "If Congress has already decided to not form an alliance with us, then it is of no use for us to attend the next 'INDIA' alliance meeting. Our top leadership will decide whether or not we'll attend the next meeting".

 

 

Delhi minister Saurabh Bhardwaj said,"Our central leadership will decide this...Our political affairs committee and INDIA parties will sit together and discuss this (poll alliance)".

 

AAP leader Somnath Bharti said,"Everyone should realise that we should keep our ambitions aside and think about the country and Constitution".

 

The Congress and AAP had been at loggerheads recently over the Centre's Delhi Services Bill. The AAP had demanded Congress to clear its stand on the ordinance as a condition to attend the I.N.D.I.A alliance meeting. Later, Congress backed AAP over the services bill in parliament, but could not stop the bill from being passed and get presidential assent.

 

 

During the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Congress-AAP talks had fallen through with both parties blaming each other for not having alliance for 18 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab. While the Congress had hit out at AAP's leadership, Kejriwal's party had accused Congress of wasting time in the name of discussion.

 

“The sole reason for us to go for an alliance with the Congress was to defeat the Modi-Shah pair in the election and not to fight over which party contests how many seats in these 18 Lok Sabha constituencies. But the Congress backtracked from the last agreed seat-sharing arrangement for Haryana", then Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia had said.