Insisting that it was too late for an alliance in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday said it had waited long "enough" for the Congress and now there was no question of taking back its candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.
Senior AAP leader Gopal Rai told IANS that the party waited for long before it decided to field its candidates, who have already started campaigning.
"We waited enough for the Congress but there was no formal communication from them. With the election so close, we cannot waste our time.
"We don't want to spend even a single second thinking about the alliance now. We've announced our last candidate for Delhi and now there is no possibility that we will roll back any of our candidates. All our seven candidates will contest," he said.
According to Rai, the Congress was not serious about Delhi and the contest in the state was between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the AAP.
"If it (Congress) was interested, its leaders would have contacted us, but they are only speaking to the media. Apart from a meeting between (Congress Chief) Rahul Gandhi and (AAP Chief) Arvind Kejriwal, there has been no formal communication between the two parties," he said.
"They are launching candidates and making efforts wherever they are serious. But in Delhi, different people are saying different things. May be they don't care about these seven seats," he added.
Rai pointed out that the AAP decided to join hands with the Congress as a compromise in the national interest even though its party workers were not ready for the alliance.
"They don't have any MP or MLA in Delhi. And yet they were behaving as if we were powerless. We won the last Lok Sabha elections and will win this one too," he insisted.
The AAP leader said his party will focus on the issue of full statehood for Delhi during the polls.
Asked about the other issues that it will highlight, Rai said "statehood for Delhi will resolve almost all the major issues of the city".
(Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in)
--IANS
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