AAP will win all 7 Delhi seats in Lok Sabha elections, says Arvind Kejriwal

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Sheila Dikshit's comments against an alliance suggested the Congress was 'not thinking about the nation'.

Delhi CM and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal (C) with deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Gopal Rai at a press conference | Suraj Singh Bisht

New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Tuesday that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will win all of Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats in the upcoming election, a day after Congress president Rahul Gandhi stated that an alliance between the parties was off the table.

Addressing a press conference, Kejriwal said surveys conducted by the party suggested a sweep for the AAP in the national capital.

“The AAP will win all seven seats on its own,” he added.

The AAP has so far declared six of its candidates for Delhi, with no nominee yet for the West Delhi seat.

The party had drawn a blank in Delhi in its maiden Lok Sabha outing five years ago, but followed it up with a stunning win in the 2015 assembly election, where it won 67 of the 70 assembly seats.

The AAP, which contested its maiden election in 2013, had arrived on the political stage as an alternative to the two big players in Delhi, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

However, despite its landslide win in the 2015 Delhi assembly election, it has failed to make inroads in other parts of the country.

The AAP and the Congress have for months been engaged in deliberations on an alliance, but disagreements on seat-sharing and the Congress’ “distrust of Arvind Kejriwal” have reportedly led the Congress to shut the doors on the possibility.

Before Gandhi, senior Congress leader Sheila Dikshit, a former three-term chief minister of Delhi, had ruled out the prospect of an alliance with the AAP.

However, at Tuesday’s press meet, when asked if negotiations between the party were still underway, Kejriwal seemed reluctant to offer a clear answer.

“It’s a theoretical question,” he said. “We had only two official conversations with them regarding an alliance.

“One was the meeting at [Nationalist Congress Party chief] Sharad Pawar’s, where Rahul Gandhi clearly refused. And the second… the comments made by Sheila Dikshit,” he added.

Addressing the media, AAP chief Kejriwal said “Dikshit’s comments” suggested the Congress was not thinking about the nation.

“The Congress is not putting the country first. The Congress’ stand has caused the Muslims, who were undecided till now, to tilt towards the AAP,” he added.

The ‘politicisation’ of Balakot

He also lashed out at the BJP, saying that the politicisation of the Balakot air strikes was backfiring on the party in Delhi.

According to surveys conducted in Delhi by AAP, he added, people were already suspicious that the BJP would either raise the Ram mandir issue or create tensions with Pakistan to gain mileage in the poll season.

“Today, there are two kinds of people in India — Modi bhakts and those who want to defeat Modi,” said Kejriwal. “The Modi-Shah duo is dangerous for India. To save India from them, we will do whatever needs to be done,” he added.

A party source later told ThePrint that the AAP surveys in Delhi had bolstered the party’s confidence to go it alone.

“We no longer need the Congress,” he said. “Earlier, we were worried that the vote will be cut, but it seems the swing vote will tilt in our favour.”

Statehood for Delhi

Raising the demand of statehood for Delhi, Kejriwal said the 2019 Lok Sabha elections were extra important for the people of the city-state as they “have been ill-treated and disrespected for the last 70 years”.

“Every person in India gets one vote, whereas the people of Delhi get half a vote,” Kejriwal said. “If we are elected, we will push for full statehood, and fix the law and order situation in Delhi.”