Aam Aadmi Party has made it clear on Thursday that the party will contest the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections alone. The party's Delhi convenor, Gopal Rai said that the alliance with Congress was only for Lok Sabha elections. He made it clear that there will not be any alliance with Congress for Delhi Assembly elections scheduled to take place in early 2025.
Notably, Rai's statement came after the AAP held a meeing with its MLAs on Thursday. "This is clear from the very first day that the INDIA alliance was formed for Lok Sabha elections. As far as Vidhan Sabha is concerned, no alliance has been formed. AAP will fight elections with its full strength," he added. Speaking to reporters earlier, Rai emphasised that opposition parties had united under the I.N.D.I.A bloc to challenge the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, but clarified that this coalition did not extend to the assembly elections.
AAP, Congress alliance in Lok Sabha polls
In the recent Lok Sabha elections, both the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress drew a blank in the national capital, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) securing victory in all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. AAP fielded candidates in four of the seven constituencies, while Congress contested the remaining three.
Both AAP and Congress are constituents of the I.N.D.I.A bloc, an alliance formed to counter the BJP's dominance in national politics. Despite their collaboration in the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, Punjab, and Gujarat, the two parties did not form an alliance in Punjab for the same polls. In Punjab, the Congress emerged stronger, winning seven seats, compared to AAP's three seats, despite AAP being the ruling party in the state.
Delhi Assembly election 2025
Assembly polls in Delhi are expected to be held in early 2025. Congress could not win a single seat in the Delhi assembly polls held in 2020. While AAP won 62 out of the 70 seats, BJP secured eighth seats in the last assembly polls. The announcement by AAP comes even as the newly elected Lok Sabha MPs have not taken oath and talks are being held among the INDIA bloc partners for better coordination to take on the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government.
