Kejriwal’s Shifting Goalpost Killed AAP-Cong Deal: Rahul Gandhi

“Kejriwal brought Punjab and Haryana into the game. That’s not workable for us,” said Rahul Gandhi.

Rahul Gandhi: The Congress was up for an alliance with AAP in Delhi.

(Photo: The Quint)

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday, 2 May said that the Congress was up for an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi, but not in Punjab and Haryana for “strategic reasons”.

In an interview to NDTV, Gandhi said that he even went against his party’s wish to form an alliance with AAP in Delhi, but Delhi Chief Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal’s insistence on including Punjab and Haryana in the equation affected the deal.

“We had a clear commitment to Mr Kejriwal, we had an alliance of 4:3. He agreed to that alliance upfront and then suddenly he brought Punjab and Haryana into the game. That’s not workable for us,” Gandhi told NDTV’s Sreenivasan Jain.

Asked about why Congress wasn’t keen on an alliance in Punjab and Haryana, Gandhi cited “strategic reasons.”

“There are strategic reasons. We have a party in Haryana, I have to take my party's view in Haryana. I have gone against my party's view in Delhi and I can understand that there was a possibility of winning  7 seats in Delhi. Kejriwal ji and AAP, frankly doesn't add anything to us in Haryana," he added.

“I was in a second ready to do an alliance in Delhi. My party was against it. But I said, ‘Listen guys, I am going to override you guys, I think these seven seats are important and I am ready to do that.’ The problem was that Mr Kejriwal was shifting goalposts,” Rahul Gandhi told NDTV.

The AAP on 20 April had claimed that it tried everything to formulate an alliance with the Congress but failed. “They are not willing to compromise in any way,” AAP’s Sanjay Singh said.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said that giving three seats to the Congress in the national capital would mean "giving three seats to the BJP," when asked his opinion on the 4:3 seat sharing formula proposed by the Congress.

With the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi approaching on 12 May, the three major parties in the fray – the Aam Aadmi Party, Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party – are expected to give each other a tough fight in the national capital.