The Congress, despite having announced its candidates for all the Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, is still open to an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Congress is ready to forge an alliance with the AAP 'until the last second', provided its chief Arvind Kejriwal drops its Haryana demand, party president Rahul Gandhi told Hindi daily NavBharat Times.
The two parties had held several meetings in the past few weeks to form an alliance for the Lok Sabha elections. They had even agreed on a 4+3 formula for Delhi, with AAP contesting on four seats and Congress three. However, talks broke down over AAP's insistence that the grand old party should agree to share seats in Haryana, Chandigarh and Punjab apart from Delhi.
The 3:4 alliance in Delhi was made subject to a pact in Haryana by AAP.
At one point, it was stated that the Congress had agreed to a 7:2:1 alliance in Haryana; it would contest seven seats, the Jannayak Janata Party two and AAP one.
Later, AAP’s Manish Sisodia accused the Congress of backing out of the Haryana arrangement.
Congress on Monday announced the names of candidates for all seats in Delhi. The AAP has already named its seven candidates in the national capital and six of them filed their nominations Monday.
AAP has blamed Congress for unsuccessful alliance talks, saying they tried hard but the Congress 'backtracked'. "We cannot do anything more, the talks of alliance with Congress are over. We know, this will help BJP, but we simply don't have any choice left," AAP leader Gopal Rai had said.