A statement by a Congress leader that the party has asked its leaders to prepare for a contest in all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi next year has caused a furore and has not gone down well with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a member of the newly formed opposition bloc INDIA.

With an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a three-hour-long meeting of senior colleagues of the party, including Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, was held in New Delhi on Wednesday. After the meeting, Congress leader Alka Lamba said they have been asked to “prepare to contest in all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital”.

“We have been told how to prepare for the 2024 election. Before the Delhi meeting, the leadership met our people in 18 states. It has been decided all Congress leaders will immediately go to work on the seven seats in Delhi to win them,” Lamba told news agency ANI.

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The remarks soon attracted reactions from the AAP. “If Congress has already decided not to form an alliance with us, then it is of no use for us to attend the next ‘INDIA’ alliance meeting. Our top leadership will decide whether or not we’ll attend the next meeting,” AAP leader Priyanka Kakkar said.

“The Congress leader’s statement is very surprising. After such statements, what is the justification for the INDIA alliance? Arvind Kejriwal ji should decide on what to do next, which is important in the interest of the country. A decision should be taken,” AAP leader Vinay Mishra was quoted as saying by NDTV.

Meanwhile, AAP Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj also spoke about the Congress’s decision that it was likely to go solo in Delhi in the 2024 polls. “Our central leadership will decide this…Our political affairs committee and INDIA parties will sit together and discuss this (poll alliance),” he said.

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Congress clarifies

The top Congress leadership in the city sprung into action and dismissed Alka Lamba’s remark as not the official stand of the party.

“Alka Lamba is a spokesperson but she is not an authorised spokesperson for talking on such important issues. I have said as an in-charge that there were no such discussions in the meeting today. I refute Alka Lamba’s statement,” Delhi Congress in-charge Deepak Babaria said.

Babaria also quipped at the AAP for reacting sharply to Lamba’s statement. “I feel that there are immature people in Aam Aadmi Party. If they want to take such a big decision on the basis of media reports then even God cannot save them,” he told reporters.

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Both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party are part of an alliance of 26 opposition parties, INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance). The Opposition alliance was formed ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to take on the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

The Congress and the AAP had previously been at loggerheads over the Centre’s ordinance on Delhi services. Prior to the bill being tabled in Parliament, Arvind Kejriwal had sought the support of non-BJP parties in defeating the bill in Rajya Sabha. The Congress had refrained from making its stand clear for days, leading to Arvind Kejriwal’s party threatening to boycott the Opposition meeting in Bengaluru.

Just before the Bengaluru meeting of the opposition parties, the Congress had finally announced its decision to support the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in its fight against the ordinance brought by the Centre on the control of services.