Ready for pact with AAP in Delhi till last second: Rahul

NEW DELHI: Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said his party was ready for an alliance with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi "till the last second" provided Arvind Kejriwal dropped the condition of extending the tie-up between the two parties to Haryana. The Delhi chief minister retorted that Congress was just "pretending" that it wanted an alliance and Rahul was not serious about it.
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In an interview to TOI 's sister publication, Navbharat Times , when asked if there was a possibility of an alliance till the deadline for withdrawal of nominations, Rahul said: "We are ready for a tie-up till the last second. The moment Kejriwal drops the condition of including Haryana, it will happen."
Rahul said it was Kejriwal himself who had proposed the 4:3 formula (four for AAP and three for Congress) for an alliance in Delhi.
"Earlier, our party leaders in Delhi did not agree to this formula. But when we convinced the Delhi leaders, Kejriwal added the condition of extending the alliance to Haryana."
Kejriwal retorted by accusing Rahul of not wanting to have an alliance and added that he was working towards dividing the anti-Narendra Modi vote. The Delhi CM recalled that Rahul had tweeted a few days ago that Congress was ready to give four seats to AAP in Delhi. "My question is - where in the world has an alliance fructified on Twitter or through statements in the media? If he wanted an alliance, he should have held talks. Congress is just pretending that it wants an alliance," he told NBT.
The AAP chief claimed that even top Congress leaders admitted that BJP would win all 10 seats in Haryana. In the event of an alliance, BJP would have lost at least eight seats in Haryana apart from the Chandigarh constituency, he said.
Kejriwal claimed that the Congress was not in a position to win in the three seats in Delhi that it was demanding. "So, they wanted to take three seats from us and gift them to BJP," Arvind Kejriwal said.
"We had two options: one, to go for the alliance with the 4:3 formula, which would have resulted in the three seats allotted to Congress going to BJP. Two, contest all the seven seats, which we hope to win. We went for the second option."
The Delhi CM said AAP had conducted a survey which indicated that Congress's vote share had gone below 5%. "Hindus are not voting for Congress and there's some confusion among the Muslims. But by the polling date, even they would realize that Congress vote share is less than 5%," he said.
Meanwhile, when asked about the possibility of his sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi taking on Modi in Varanasi, Rahul revealed that the party had taken a decision on this. "But, we want to maintain suspense for now on the decision we have taken."
Rahul reiterated that his party was ready for an alliance in UP and added that Priyanka had been told to ensure that the prospects of SP-BSP candidates should not be damaged on seats where Congress was weak.
When asked on his 'Chowkidar chor hai' slogan against Modi, Rahul said: "This slogan is finding resonance among people because this is the truth."
(NBT EXCLUSIVE, Reported by Mohd Nadeem, Narendra Mishra, Poonam Pandey)
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