Support to AAP is not ‘unconditional,’ says Congress
New Delhi: As Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) asks the people of Delhi to decide whether they should form a minority government, the Congress today said that its support to the one-year-old party is not ‘unconditional’. “We have said we will not bring down your government. But the support is not for always. There’s always the scope of a rethink if they don’t deliver,” senior Congress leader Kiran Walia told NDTV today.
The year-old party, struggling with the key political decision just after its spectacular debut in the Delhi election, threw it open to an opinion poll, insisting that it was not running from its responsibility. “As of yesterday, 75 per cent of the people have said that we should form the government,” Shazia Ilmi told.
AAP, which won 28 seats and fell eight short of the majority mark in the assembly polls, had last week written to both the BJP and the Congress seeking their views on what it called 18 issues key to Delhi, so that it could decide on taking their support.
“The BJP did not even bother to reply, and the Congress said 16 points were executive decisions, and it would support us on the remaining two,” Mr Kejriwal had said. The BJP, which fell five short of a majority with 31 seats, and the AAP have both so far refused to stake claim to power saying they do not have the mandate to rule.
Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung has reportedly said in a report to the Centre that recommending president’s rule is the best way out of the impasse.
Leaders of the BJP and the Congress have accused the AAP of trying to avoid forming a government as they know they can’t fulfill their “unrealistic” poll promises.