AAP not to have poll pact with Congress in Punjab, reiterates Bhagwant Mann

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, January 24

The Aam Aadmi Party will contest the General Election independently in Punjab, said Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann here today.

“In 2024, Punjab will create history by giving 13:0 to AAP. There will be no alliance with the Congress in the state,” said Mann, after presiding over a meeting of the Council of Ministers this afternoon.

He, however, refused to be drawn into any talk of the future of the INDIA bloc if AAP was not to contest the elections with the Congress.

Will create history

In 2024, Punjab will create history by giving 13:0 to AAP. There will be no alliance with the Congress in the state. Bhagwant Mann, Chief Minister

His statement today comes after a meeting of top party leaders in Delhi last Saturday wherein Mann had reiterated to the party high command that “it will be politically disastrous” for the ruling party to go in for an alliance with the state’s principal opposition party, the Congress. This is because all through in the run-up to the 2022 Assembly polls and even after coming to power, the party has been projecting the previous Congress government and its leaders as “corrupt and having been involved in acts of omission and commission”.

Last week, while senior party leader and MP Raghav Chadha had hinted that the pre-poll alliance between AAP and the Congress would be from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Mann had stated that in Punjab, the two parties would not contest the elections together.

Sources said the AAP top brass had agreed that the party should contest the elections on its own in Punjab. Going it alone would also strengthen the party at the grassroots level, said a senior party functionary.

Echoing similar sentiments, CM Mann, when questioned about the alliance of AAP and the Congress in Chandigarh for the mayoral poll and what it meant for Punjab, was quick to reply that AAP would contest 14 Lok Sabha seats (referring to Chandigarh along with 13 Punjab seats) independently. “Our voters will judge us on our good performance and we will create history by winning all seats on our own,” he said.

Mann said nearly 40 candidates (three per constituency) would be first selected and the best among them would be fielded in the polls.

40 candidates to be shortlisted

• Sources said the AAP top brass had agreed that the party should contest the Lok Sabha elections on its own in Punjab
• 300 units of free power, government jobs given to youth, soon-to-begin doorstep delivery of ration and Aam Aadmi Clinics would work in favour of the party
• Going it alone would also strengthen the party at the grassroots level and give it a boost in the rural and urban local body polls, to be held later
• The CM said nearly 40 candidates (three per constituency) would be selected first and the best among them would be fielded in the polls