Meet fuels buzz on AAP-Cong tie-up; no way, says Arvind Kejriwal

The now on, now off Aam Aadmi Party and Congress ties were back in focus on Wednesday hours after a picture of a meeting featuring Arvind Kejriwal and leaders of the grand old party appeared on social media.

The image, posted on X by Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar’s Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule, shows AAP chief Kejriwal, AAP’s Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh, Congress veteran and Kejriwal’s lawyer in the Delhi excise scam Abhishek Singhvi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s close aide Gurdeep Sappal sitting together engaged in deep discussions.

Also in the frame is NCP-SP chief Sharad Pawar and other party leaders, along with Sule.

Though Kejriwal and Congress rushed to scotch any alliance talk soon after the image appeared, some sources said nothing was final in politics till it was final.

“AAP will be fighting this election on its own strength in Delhi. There is no possibility of any alliance with the Congress,” said Kejriwal with a senior Congress leader also pointing out there was no conversation around an alliance with AAP. Yet, some sources in the INDIA bloc maintained it was too early to rule out alliance talks in Delhi. One AICC functionary said the Pawar meeting showcased on X was on the issue of electoral rolls, voter lists and election malpractices in Maharashtra.

The timing of the meeting was, however, interesting — days after Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar announced that his party (NCP) would be contesting the Delhi elections in 2025. Ajit Pawar had made the announcement recently when he was in Delhi to inaugurate a new party office.

As for AAP and the Congress, they had contested the Lok Sabha elections in Haryana, Gujarat, Chandigarh and Delhi in a pre-poll arrangement.

Later, their parleys for a similar arrangement in the Haryana Assembly elections failed.

In 2013, when Kejriwal contested his maiden election in Delhi and fell short of majority, the Congress-led by former CM Sheila Dikshit had backed him for chief ministership.

In the next two Delhi polls, AAP returned with a thumping majority routing the Congress.

The 2025 Delhi election would be critical for opposition INDIA parties at a time of a resurgent BJP which has won two state polls back to back — Maharashtra and Haryana, losing Jharkhand to the JMM-led coalition.