Congress’s Delhi in-charge PC Chacko on Friday said the party was ready for an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) if it agreed to restrict the partnership only to Delhi.

Chacko said that in the “present circumstances”, the party would fight the elections on its own in Delhi as AAP is adamant on its “impractical” demands on the seat sharing.

“We are compelled to contest the elections in Delhi on our own. The AAP wanted to extend the alliance to other states and that was not practical. Every state is different. If they are ready for an alliance in Delhi, we were and we are still ready,” Chacko said.

The Congress leader said that despite initial reservations on the alliance among the leadership, the state unit of the party was persuaded and everything had fallen in line; but AAP on
Wednesday made a public statement that they had called off the talks.

AAP’s Delhi convener Gopal Rail, in response to the Congress, and said a tie-up only in Delhi would not save the country from the BJP.

“Congress should have thought of cooperating in 33 seats across four states (Goa, Punjab, Delhi and Haryana), instead of getting stuck on their demand for three seats in Delhi,” Rai said.

Chacko said the Congress would go ahead with fighting elections in Delhi on its own if AAP does not want the alliance and the candidate list would be released in a day or two.

In a meeting of the chief election committee (CEC) of the Congress on Thursday evening, the names of candidates from four constituencies were finalised.

Former MPs Ajay Maken from New Delhi, JP Agarwal from Northeast Delhi, and Kapil Sibal from Chandni Chowk were the party’s choice. Raj Kumar Chauhan, former five-time legislator from Mangolpuri, will be the Congress’s face from the reserved constituency of Northwest Delhi, party leaders said. A formal announcement of the candidate list is awaited.

Senior Congress leaders said the final decision is still pending for the remaining three constituencies—West, South and East Delhi.

First Published: Apr 13, 2019 05:32 IST