AAP and Congress Punjab units refuse to share seats: Details

Just days after the opposition alliance, I.N.D.I.A. passed a resolution to fight the 2024 Parliament elections together “as far as possible”, leaders of alliance partners AAP and Congress have refused to form an alliance in the state. 

Refuting the possibility of an alliance with Congress, AAP leader and Punjab Minister Anmol Gagan Mann categorically stated that there would be no alliance with the Congress party in the state. She added that AAP would contest elections on all 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state under its own symbol.

Mann said, “The decision at the national level will be made by the high command, but the Aam Aadmi Party will contest on its own symbol in all 13 seats in Punjab. We cannot have any agreement with the Congress.”

Interestingly, several Congress leaders in the state also vehemently oppose the idea of forging an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party. 

Evidently, on Tuesday (5 September) state leadership of the Congress party asserted that they are against any kind of alliance with the AAP in Punjab for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. They asked the state Congress President Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and the leader of the Opposition, Partap Singh Bajwa, to convey to the party high command that they are against the alliance.

Remarkably, Bajwa had expressed his strong dissatisfaction with the idea of forming an alliance with AAP. Speaking against an alliance with AAP, Bajwa said, “Our party workers do not want to be even remotely associated with people who are anti-Punjab.” 

Similarly, on the issue of state leadership advising not to form an alliance with AAP, Raja Warring stated that the issue would be taken up with the party’s national leadership. However, he added that the party is preparing to contest all 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab. 

He said, “There are people who are for it and against it. This is the party’s internal issue; we will have discussions with our leadership. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi have asked us to prepare to contest all 13 Lok Sabha seats to fight against the government.” 

Speaking on the development, Former Punjab Congress Chief Navjot Singh Sidhu claimed that the decision of the party’s high command is supreme.

The decision of the party high command is supreme . It is for a greater cause,National interest has been kept paramount to honour the spirit of the constitution and to free the enchained institutions which draw their strength from constitutional values. Petty…

— Navjot Singh Sidhu (@sherryontopp) September 6, 2023

Earlier, on the 1st of September, the opposition alliance passed a resolution that they would contest the 2024 Lok Sabha polls together “as far as possible“. The alliance claimed that seat-sharing arrangements in states would be concluded at the earliest in a “collaborative spirit of give-and-take.” 

However, in less than a week, both the alliance members in the state have said no to the I.N.D.I. alliance in Punjab, yet again exposing the ‘as far as possible’ caveat in the resolution.