Congress set to contest Delhi polls alone

The Congress is all set to contest the Lok Sabha polls in the national capital alone by fielding candidates in all the seven parliamentary seats, a senior party leader said yesterday.
The leader told IANS: “Talks with the AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) have failed and we will go all alone in the Lok Sabha polls in Delhi.”
Asked about the candidates, he said: “The party has decided to field former minister Ajay Maken from New Delhi, former chief minister Sheila Dikshit from Chandni Chowk, Olympian wrestler Sushil Kumar from West Delhi and Aravinder Lovely from East Delhi.”
He said the party will field Ramesh Kumar from South Delhi, Raj Kumar Chauhan from North West Delhi and J P Agarwal from North East Delhi.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won all the seven seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
On April 15, Congress president Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of making a U-turn on seat sharing in the national capital.
The chief minister retorted wondering which “U-turn” the Congress was referring to when negotiations were still on.
Later, Deputy Chief Minister and AAP leader Manish Sisodia said the alliance with the Congress in the national capital was not possible as the grand old party refused a tie-up in Haryana.
Addressing a press conference here, Sisodia said that AAP was popular in Delhi and can sweep all the seven Lok Sabha seats, while the Congress cannot win even a single seat.
Yet the AAP insisted on an alliance, not just in Delhi, but in other states as well in order “to stop the Modi-Shah duo” from coming back to power, Sisodia said.
“We are popular in Delhi and can win all the seven seats. There is not a single MP or MLA of the Congress in Delhi. Yet it wants half of the Lok Sabha seats. If we share some of them with the Congress, it will not be able to pull through even a single seat,” he said.
The Congress abandoned the alliance plans after several rounds of negotiations, he claimed.
On Friday, the Congress went back on the proposal of alliance with the AAP and the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), which could have defeated the BJP in 10 seats in Haryana, he said.
Sisodia said the Congress first proposed a 6:3:1 seat-sharing formula - six for the Congress, three for the JJP and one for the AAP - which was later revised to 7:3:1.
“We did everything possible for an alliance in Haryana and elsewhere. We were ready for a 4:3 seat-sharing formula in Delhi as well. However, the Congress retracted last night,” he said.
“The Congress does not have the intention to forge an alliance in Haryana. It was wasting time so far,” Sisodia said.
Delhi goes to the polls on May 12.