Today in Politics: Will they or won’t they? AAP, Congress’s Delhi dance continues

The Chandigarh Mayor’s post may be with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for now but even better news for the INDIA alliance of Opposition parties on Tuesday was when the Delhi Chief Minister said that seat-sharing talks with the Congress for Delhi were in the final stages and a decision would be made “very soon”.

Kejriwal’s statement came exactly a week after the AAP in a public snub to the Congress said the party did not deserve a single seat in Delhi based on merit and statistics but was being offered one “keeping in mind the alliance dharma”. AAP national general secretary Sandeep Pathak had blamed a considerable delay in finalising seat-sharing for his party’s unilateral move.

What the contours of a possible Delhi deal looks like is not yet clear and it has to be seen if the Congress or the AAP provide more clarity on Wednesday. The uphill battle that awaits any Opposition alliance in the national Capital cannot be understated — the BJP swept Delhi the last two times, winning all seven seats.

But one thing that Kejriwal reiterated on Tuesday is that there will be no pre-poll agreement in Punjab, another state where the two parties are direct rivals and a lot of animosity exists between their state leaders. “Do not worry, that (contesting independently) is a strategy for victory,” Kejriwal told reporters without elucidating further. Does it mean that the two parties will have some sort of a tacit understanding to ensure they do not eat into each other’s votes in the state?

In context: With a couple of months to go for the Lok Sabha polls, the INDIA alliance has not been able to firm up either a seat-sharing agreement or a visible and coherent strategy on the ground. While there are signals here and there — like Kejriwal’s