After Atishi Marlena, four more constituency in-charges are likely to be declared candidates, while the search has begun for the other two seats.
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party has stepped up preparations to contest the next Lok Sabha elections on its own in Delhi, a clear indication that the ruling party has given up hope of forging an alliance with the Congress.
The AAP, which declared Marlena as its East Delhi candidate Monday, is likely to field the prabharis (in-charges) of four other Lok Sabha constituencies as its candidates — Pankaj Gupta from Chandni Chowk, Raghav Chadha from South Delhi, Dilip Pandey from North-East Delhi and Guggan Singh Ranga from North-West Delhi.
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It has also started the process of identifying its candidates for the remaining two seats, a senior party functionary told ThePrint.
“The chief minister (Arvind Kejriwal) himself had assured all the five declared prabharis that they would be candidates from those seats. One by one, he himself will inaugurate their election offices and declare them candidates,” the source said.
No alliance
An AAP leader said the party was prepared to give three of the seven seats — New Delhi, West Delhi and North-West Delhi — to the Congress, if the latter agreed to an anti-BJP alliance. The BJP currently holds all seven Lok Sabha seats in the city-state.
However, any alliance proposal seems to be off now, considering Kejriwal upped the ante against the Congress Wednesday, tweeting that any vote for the grand old party would reduce AAP’s vote share and help the BJP in winning the polls.
Delhi Congress leaders, including former chief minister Sheila Dikshit and state unit chief Ajay Maken, have been opposed to any alliance with the AAP. Maken has contended that the AAP is losing ground in Delhi, so why should the Congress rescue it?
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AAP leader and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh has blamed the Congress as the biggest obstacle on the road to opposition unity.
Road ahead not easy
The party seems to be realising that challenging the BJP will not be easy, insiders said. “In the Lok Sabha elections, issues are very different. It is tough to challenge the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” a party source said.
The source pointed out that the party didn’t do well in last year’s municipality elections, where its vote share was halved from the 54.3 per cent it registered in the 2015 assembly polls, when it won 67 of Delhi’s 70 seats.
The party will bank heavily on the personal popularity of Kejriwal, but given that it lost all seven seats to the BJP at a time when its star was still in the ascendency, things may be even tougher in 2019, the source said.
I think CONGRESS particularly Rahul should be serious about 2019 ELECTIONS. It appears, they are living in fools world.