SP chooses AAP over Cong in Delhi Assembly elections | Lucknow News – Times of India

Lucknow: In what may possibly set the tone for regrouping of regional parties within the INDIA bloc, Samajwadi Party on Monday chose Aam Admi Party over the Congress in the Delhi Assembly polls slated to held early 2025.
At an event in Delhi, SP national president Akhilesh Yadav joined Arvind Kejriwal at AAP’s ‘Mahila Adalat’ campaign in Delhi on Monday and said that AAP should again get a chance to serve people in Delhi.
“Ye AAP ka jo ayojan ho raha hai uske liye main bahut bahut badhai deta hoon (On his event organized by AAP, I want to congratulate everyone),” Akhilesh said. “Jitna AAP sarkar ne kaam kiya hai … utna hi hum mehsoos karte hain ki apko ek bar phir yahan kaam karne ka mauqua milna chahiye (The way the AAP government has worked, we feel that they should get another chance to work here),” Akhilesh said as he concluded his address.
AAP launched Mahila Adalat – a campaign to focus on crime against women – at a function held at Thyagraj Stadium in New Delhi to pay tributes to Nirbhaya. The Nirbhaya case completed 12 years on Monday. Apart from SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and AAP counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi Chief Minister Atishi and MP Sanjay Singh were also present at the event.
In the political circles, Akhilesh’s two-line appeal for AAP is being seen as a clear declaration that SP has chosen Arvind Kejriwal’s party over the Congress in Delhi elections. A day after Jammu and Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah and his counterpart in West Bengal – TMC’s Mamata Banerjee – questioned Congress’s stance on EVMs, the coming together on SP and AAP in Delhi elections strongly suggests a possible regrouping of regional parties within the INDIA bloc for state election.
The immediate provocation behind SP-AAP proximity in Delhi is the Congress Party’s decision to pit Sandeep Dikshit against Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi assembly constituency. “Is this how the Congress decides to treat a two time chief minister who has resigned from the chair a few months ago to ensure smooth functioning of the government?,” asked a senior AAP leader.
Within the SP, the general feeling is that the Congress was out to ‘disrespect’ the INDIA bloc allies forcing the regional partners to respond. “As allies, we have together fought against the BJP. We are also sharing the attacks that comes from the BJP despite the fact that only Congress that ruled the Centre was to be blamed of anything if at all. But the Congress seems least considerate about this,” said a senior SP functionary talking to TOI.
Drawing parallels with the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, SP functionaries said since Congress was the major player there, the SP chose to contest on limited seats because the party never wanted to send across any confusing signals to the voters with regards of INDIA alliance. “But now the Congress now wants to play it differently, maybe because there is a lot of time before the next Lok Sabha elections,” said a SP functionary.
There is also discontent among the regional members of the INDIA bloc over the manner in which the Congress functionaries are pushing to establish Rahul Gandhi as the head of the INDIA bloc when the opposition alliance had elected Mallikarjun Kharge as its chairman. A case in point was the statement of UPCC chief Ajay Rai where he projected Rahul as the leader of INDIA bloc. There is a feeling among regional party leaders that such attempts are sending wrong signals to the Dalit community (as Kharge is a Dalit), still the Congress did not bother to officially clarify on the issue.