Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the two members of newly-formed opposition bloc Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A.), held a crucial meeting on Monday in New Delhi to discuss the seat sharing for 2024 Parliamentary Polls.
According to media reports, the meeting was held to discuss the seat sharing in the Lok Sabha constituencies in Punjab and Delhi where the AAP currently governs.
Delhi has seven Lok Sabha seats while Punjab has 13 and there have been reports of rift among the members of AAP and Congress in both the states.
Media reports further suggest that the AAP is willing to give only two seats to Congress in Delhi while Congress’ Punjab unit wants to go it alone in the state.
All seven seats in Delhi were won by BJP in the 2019 parliamentary polls, while out of 13 seats in the Punjab, Congress currently has seven while AAP has one. The BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) have two seats each and one is held by SAD (Amritsar).
From Congress, former state chief of Rajasthan Ashok Gehlot, Mukul Wasnik, the party’s Delhi unit chief Arvinder Singh Lovely, Salman Khurshid and Mohan Prakash attended the meeting. Parliamentarian Sandeep Pathak, Delhi cabinet ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj were present from AAP side.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, Gehlot said every political party in such a grand alliance has to make sacrifices, since its success would deny Prime Minister Narendra Modi another term as PM.
“Nobody should get involved in what anyone is saying. When such a large alliance is formed, everyone has to compromise and make sacrifices. Congress has taken the initiative and a good message has gone across the country and the process is going ahead...If the alliance succeeds, then it should not come as a surprise that PM Modi won't be able to form the government the next time,” Ghelot said.
Meanwhile, Wasnik said scores of issues relating to the elections were discussed and talks will continue.
“We will meet again and only then we will take a final call on seat share. Everything was discussed in detail. We will fight the elections together and we will give a befitting reply to the BJP,” he said.
However, no AAP members were available for the immediate comment.
The meeting is seen as an attempt by Congress to resolve internal differences within the I.N.D.I.A. bloc and ensure that the alliance poses a strong challenge to the ruling BJP.