Is AAP-Congress alliance a done deal in Delhi?

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress are said to be at the final stages of sealing the seat-sharing agreement for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Delhi.

While the AAP had publicly offered one of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi to the Congress, sources confirmed that the two parties are discussing the 4:3 formula and a deal could be sealed soon.

As per the proposed agreement, the AAP will contest four seats and the Congress three.

If the alliance is firmed, the two parties, by preventing any division of opposition votes, are expected to give a tough fight to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had won all seven seats in Delhi both in the 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

However, the AAP had convincingly defeated the BJP in the 2015 and 2020 assembly polls.

The sources further said the two parties are also discussing the seat-sharing in Gujarat and Assam.

It remains to be seen if the AAP is willing to leave three seats for the Congress but a final decision on the seat-sharing is expected soon.

However, both the AAP and the Congress have strategically decided to fight separately in Punjab given that they don't want to cede the opposition space to either the BJP or the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) who have been relegated to the political margins in the border state over the years.

The BJP and the SAD were on the verge of announcing the renewal of their ties but had to keep the decision in abeyance due to the ongoing farmers' agitation that has erupted over their demand for implementation of the minimum support price (MSP).

No political party or a leader will share the stage with the BJP in Punjab in the midst of the ongoing protests and the rising public anger against the saffron party. In many places, the villagers have already started sit-in protests outside the residence of all BJP leaders.