AAP fields six candidates in Delhi, no alliance with Congress

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has fielded six candidates from Delhi for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Turning its back on the chances of any pre-poll alliance with the Congress, the AAP announced its candidates for six of the seven seats they will be contesting from in the next national elections.

The selected candidates are Atishi Marlena from East Delhi, Raghav Chaddha from South Delhi, Pankaj Gupta from Chandni Chowk, Dilip Pandey from North East Delhi, Gugan Singh from North West Delhi and Brajesh Goel from the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat.

Discussions are on to decide on the seventh seat, said Gopal Rai, senior leader of the AAP at a press conference.

The seven seats from Delhi were won by the BJP in the last elections.

Answering questions on why a pre-poll alliance with the Congress did not work out, Rai said the Congress was responsible for it. There were such indications earlier as Delhi chief minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal had stated that he was ‘tired’ of seeking an alliance with the Congress.

The AAP and the Congress have shared a chequered relationship in the past since the former was born out of an anti-corruption movement that targeted the Delhi Congress government led by chief minister Sheila Dixit.

In the last Assembly elections in 2015, AAP had swept all the seats while the Congress had failed to secure even a single seat.

To unite the Opposition into a pre-poll alliance, leaders like Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, DMK head MK Stalin, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and NCP chief Sharad Pawar have expressed interest in joining forces against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

However, a pre-poll alliance of the Opposition parties hasn’t yet emerged clearly, as many seem unable to clear the differences they have at the state-level where they are fighting against each other.

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