- Tuesday, March 11, 2025
A day after sealing a deal with Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress reportedly entered agreement with the Aam Aadmi Party in states such as Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Chandigarh and possibly Haryana.
By: Shubham Ghosh
IT seems after some serious jolts, India’s opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) forum is finally getting to see some positive developments.
A day after the Indian National Congress, a major party of the alliance, confirmed that its seat-sharing deal with Samajwadi Party (SP) in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh was sealed ahead of the upcoming general elections, it has been reported that the Grand Old Party also reached a broad consensus with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over sharing of seats in a number of states and Union Territories, such as Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Chandigarh and possibly Haryana, India’s NDTV reported.
While the confirmation was awaited, sources in the Congress said some details were still being worked out.
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It was only a few days ago that the Congress was facing resistance from a number of parties of the INDIA bloc, including the SP, AAP and Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of the eastern state of West Bengal, over sharing of seats. While the AAP and Trinamool refused to make any alliance with the Congress in the states that they rule — Punjab and Bengal, respectively, the deal between the Congress and SP was also in danger of being ruined over three crucial seats that the SP refused to give. Eventually, the SP gave the Congress 17 seats while keeping 63 for itself in Uttar Pradesh.
The SP also said on Thursday (22) that its chief Akhilesh Yadav will attend Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s ongoing Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Agra in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday (25).
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The NDTV report cited sources saying that in Delhi, a state which is also ruled by the AAP, three seats out of seven were given to the Congress while the remaining were with the ruling party.
In Gujarat, the home state of prime minister Narendra Modi, the AAP will contest in two seats — Bhavnagar and Bharuch — which are currently held by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The party has already announced names of its candidates contesting in those two seats. Gujarat sends 26 parliamentarians to the Lok Sabha or lower chamber of the parliament. The AAP has emerged as a major challenger to Modi’s BJP in Gujarat over the last few years despite not contesting from the state in 2019 while the Congress has slumped.
In Chandigarh, which sends a lone parliamentarian to the Lok Sabha, the Congress will field its candidate. Previous reports said the AAP might insist on contesting this constituency which was once held by the Congress but was wrested by the BJP in 2014 and 2019.
In Haryana, which has 10 Lok Sabha constituencies, the AAP may contest in one seat but the final arrangement was yet to be decided upon. In 2019, the BJP won all 10 seats in this state with nearly 60 per cent vote share while the Congress’s vote share remained around 29 per cent. The AAP did not contest from Haryana in 2019.
In Goa, which sends two MPs, the AAP offered the South Goa seat to the Congress. It was not clear, however, whether the two parties will contest the North Goa seat, which is held by Modi’s party.
In Punjab, the AAP will contest in all 13 seats. In 2019, the AAP won only one seat in Punjab while the Congress won eight. However, the AAP is currently in power in Punjab, after having swept it in the 2022 assembly elections.
The seat-sharing between the Congress and AAP comes a day after the Supreme Court of India gave a ruling in favour of the two parties’ joint candidate in the recently held mayoral election in Chandigarh after he was allegedly beaten through electoral malpractices. It was INDIA’s first electoral win against the BJP and would give a huge boost to the alliance’s confidence in the pre-poll period.
Set up last year to deny Modi and his BJP a third straight term in office, the INDIA bloc suffered a couple of huge blows as Nitish Kumar, a heavyweight leader who played an instrumental role in its rise, left it to return to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
Another ally — Rashtriya Lok Dal — is also reportedly set to join hands with the BJP after exiting the INDIA alliance after Modi announced the prestigious Bharat Ratna award posthumously for former Indian prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, grandfather of the current chief of the RLD and a noted farmer leader.
