Delhi Congress said it will not tie-up with AAP, the party whose popularity was eroding. (File)
The Delhi Congress on Thursday made it clear it will have no alliance with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for 2019 Lok Sabha elections, after Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel advocated participation of the AAP in the proposed grand alliance of opposition parties to take on the BJP.
The Congress leaders and workers are against any alliance with the AAP, whose vote share is "fast eroding", for 2019 Parliamentary elections, Delhi Congress chief spokesperson Sharmishtha Mukherjee and senior leader Chatar Singh said in a statement.
"Congress will have no alliance with Aam Aadmi Party in the Parliamentary elections in Delhi in 2019," they said.
Referring to Mr Goel's statement, they said there is "no change in the Congress stand" that it will not have any tie-up with the AAP in the Parliamentary elections in 2019.
The Delhi Assembly Speaker, on the sidelines of an event, said that participation of AAP in proposed 'Mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) will be in the interest of Delhi and the country.
After a meeting with the district Congress committees on June 2 this year, Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken had said that the Congress workers and leaders of Delhi do not want any electoral understanding with Arvind Kejriwal's party in the 2019 Parliamentary elections."
Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) that won 67 out of 70 Assembly seats in the 2015 Assembly elections in Delhi, is now "struggling" to keep its flock together as the popularity of the party has been fast "eroding", the Congress leaders claimed.
The vote share of ruling AAP came down to 26 per cent in last year's municipal corporation elections while the vote percentage of Congress went up from 9.5 percent to 26 per cent, they said.
"Congress graph has been steadily going up since the 2015 Assembly elections. The average vote percentage of the Congress in elections held following 2015 Assembly polls in Delhi had been 26.24 per cent while that of the AAP came down to 28 per cent from as high as 56-57 per cent," they claimed.