At the highest levels in Congress and AAP, there is a realisation that an alliance could lead to a sweep for the INDIA bloc in Punjab. Also, there may be no alliance in Delhi’s seven seats between both parties if a tie-up does not work out in Punjab
After both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have said in Punjab that they can go alone in the Lok Sabha elections in the state next year, all eyes are now on Arvind Kejriwal’s three-day visit to the state and a Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting scheduled over this weekend.
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Both sides are waiting to take a cue from each other’s stance, senior leaders from both camps told News18 in Chandigarh.
“Let us see what Kejriwal says on the talks of the tie-up during his visit to Punjab that starts on Wednesday. He has already declared the first list of candidates in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is criticising the Congress. The cadre and leaders of the Congress in Punjab are against any alliance with AAP in the state in Lok Sabha elections. The final call will be taken by our central leadership during the CWC meeting on September 16-17 in Telangana which all state presidents will attend,” a senior Punjab Congress leader told News18.
Both Congress Leader of Opposition in Punjab, Partap Singh Bajwa, and Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring have publicly said they do not wish to ally with AAP for the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.
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Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann responded to the same, saying AAP has the capability to fight the Lok Sabha elections on its own and win.
However, News18 has learnt that at the highest levels in Congress and AAP, there is a realisation that such an alliance may be beneficial and could lead to a sweep for the INDIA alliance in Punjab. Also, there may be no alliance in Delhi’s seven seats between both parties if a tie-up does not work out in Punjab.
Congress is now waiting to see what public stance Kejriwal takes on the ‘alliance talks’ during his three-day stint in which he will be visiting Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Mohali. Some see the visit as AAP sounding the Lok Sabha bugle in Punjab, where the party has been upbeat ever since its big win in the assembly elections in 2022. AAP won only one out of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab in 2019 after it had fought alone while the Congress had won eight seats, with SAD-BJP alliance bagging four seats. But the SAD and BJP have since broken their tie-up and AAP has opposed the entry of SAD into the INDIA alliance. All four parties are hence fighting alone.
Both Bajwa and Warring have also been launching strong attacks on the performance of the AAP government in Punjab and recently said many AAP MLAs are wishing to jump ship to the Congress. In this backdrop, Kejriwal is coming to Punjab to celebrate the successes of the Bhagwant Mann government, including inaugurating a ‘School of Eminence’ in Amritsar on the lines of the Delhi education model. AAP government is opening a total of 117 schools of eminence. Kejriwal will also address a huge public meeting in Amritsar on September 13 and hold townhall meeting with entrepreneurs in Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Mohali on September 14-15, AAP said.
WE HAVE FULFILLED GUARANTEES: AAP
AAP claims the Mann government has fulfilled many guarantees given to the people of Punjab, including the ‘health guarantee’. A total of 659 Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics have been opened in Punjab and many are currently under construction and will be handed over to the public in the next few months. More than 47 lakh people have recovered after getting treatment in Aam Aadmi Mohalla clinics across Punjab, AAP says.
The people of Punjab are also being given 300 units of electricity free of cost and about 90 per cent of the families of Punjab are benefiting from this, with their electricity bill coming to zero, AAP says. Apart from this, the Bhagwant Mann government has issued a WhatsApp number for the public to lodge corruption complaints. AAP also claims that over 36,000 government jobs have been given in Punjab while 2.77 lakh private jobs will be created after investment worth more than Rs 50,000 crore has already come.
