A BITTER RIVALRY

With the Congress rebuffing AAP’s insistence on spelling out its stance on opposing the Centre’s ordinance on services in Parliament in advance, the latter seems to have made up its mind not to have any truck with the grand old party in the 2024 LS polls in the capital, writes Anup Verma

- Anup Verma

THE political deadlock between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress appears to continue even after attempts of like-minded parties to form an Opposition alliance ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Exchange of words between the AAP and the Congress over the Centre’s ordinance related to services Delhi and the AAP’s attempt to isolate the grand old party in the Patna conclave for not supporting them over the ordinance issue have sent a clear message that both the parties are not going to share one platform against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha elections due in 2024.

The rift between both the parties widened when AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal along with his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann left the opposition meet in Patna midway and later his party’s general secretary Sandeep Pathak announced in principle support to the controversial Uniform Civil Code, if the Centre brings it in Parliament.

Taking a step further, Pathak also cleared the air saying that the party will fight all upcoming elections including 2024 Lok Sabha elections on its own. Since attempt of alliance of both the parties appears backfired, the picture of Delhi Politics before the Lok Sabha polls is very much clear.

Eyeing to snatch all seven seats of Delhi from the BJP, both the parties had explored options to form an alliance before 2019 Lok Sabha elections but their talks failed at the last minute over seat sharing arrangement.

The AAP leaders had said that an alliance just in Delhi was not possible after the Congress refused to have a tieup in Haryana and Punjab.