Even as the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party are holding talks over seat sharing for Lok Sabha elections, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Wednesday dropped strong hints that his party may go solo in the state.
Speaking to reporters in Chandigarh, Mann said the AAP would win all the 13 parliamentary seats in Punjab.
"History will be created in the state by 13-0, where 13 seats will be a verdict in favour of pro-people policies of the state government and the Opposition will be badly renounced by people for their anti-Punjab stance,” he said.
The AAP leader exuded confidence that the people of the state would once again stand with the party as the state government had done enough work for their welfare.
Asserting that the AAP workers and volunteers in Punjab were "very excited" about the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Mann said, "Punjab has always created new records, be it the green revolution or the freedom struggle. Punjab is famous for creating new stories and this time it will create a 13-0 record."
Mann’s remarks came two days after the Congress and the AAP—two major constituents of the opposition INDIA bloc—forged an alliance for the upcoming Chandigarh mayoral polls.
Under the arrangement, the AAP will fight for the mayor's seat while the Congress will contest the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor.
Last week, leaders of both the parties had held a meeting in Delhi to discuss the seat sharing for the Lok Sabha polls, with both sides saying the talks were progressing well.
AAP national general secretary (organisation) Sandeep Pathak, Delhi ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bhardwaj and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha took part in the meeting. The Congress was represented by Mukul Wasnik and other party leaders.
However, according to reports, the state units of both parties in Punjab remain reluctant to forge an alliance for the general elections. The spat between them escalated on Wednesday with a Congress leader comparing Mann and his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal with German dictator Adolf Hitler.
"The first thing I would like to advise them is to pull down the pictures of Baba Saheb Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh from their offices and replace it with Adolf Hitler. And if you carefully see the picture of Hitler, it matches with one of their (AAP) leaders," said Congress's Pratap Singh Bajwa.
