AAP and Congress seal Delhi pact but obstacles remain in other states, from Gujarat to Goa

While the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress seem to have set aside their differences to tie up nationally ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, some state-specific friction remains.

After days of formal and informal meetings, phone calls and debates over formulas, both parties reached a broad understanding on seat-sharing on Thursday. Though both agreed to a 4-3 pact in Delhi even at the end of last year, the AAP saw Congress’s refusal to cede seats beyond the national capital and a lack of urgency in decision-making as key speed-breakers.

Eventually, the decision on Punjab, where both parties are going it alone, came easy as the state units of both parties stuck to their position of not aligning with the other. The AAP has also announced the names of three candidates in Assam. But it is seats in Gujarat and Goa that proved to be hurdles, with no clarity yet in the former.

Gujarat

Senior Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) leaders have been against sharing seats with AAP as the party “dented its prospects in the 2022 Assembly polls”. The wounds from this election are still fresh as the AAP damaged the Congress’s chances on several of the 35 seats where it came second by capturing over 20% of the votes in those seats, with nine of these segments being Congress bastions in tribal districts.

The Congress garnered over 27% of the votes in 2022 while the AAP got nearly 13%. The latter initially sought eight of the state’s 26 Lok Sabha seats based on vote share but the demand came down to two seats, subject to the outcome of seat-sharing talks in other states. A senior AAP leader said that after much back and forth, its Gujarat unit had declared Botad MLA Umesh Makwana as its candidate from Bhavnagar and Dediapada MLA Chaitar