AAP Explains Reasons For Skipping Maharashtra Polls: ‘They Offered Us Seats, But...’

New Delhi: A day after declaring its withdrawal from the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections, AAP leader and Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj emphasised that the party’s primary objective is to defeat the BJP, avoiding any "opposition split" similar to what occurred during the Haryana assembly elections. 

The AAP leader extended gratitude to Sharad Pawar's NCP and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena for offering the party seats. "It is the generosity of Sharad Pawar's NCP and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena that they offered us seats. But we saw that this is not a matter of contesting elections for seats. This is a matter of defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party,” ANI quoted Bhardwaj. 

He added that AAP must avoid any head-on contest with the INDIA bloc party. “Otherwise, like in Haryana, due to the division of opposition parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party will come back to power, and Arvind Kejriwal ji said that we will try our best to make the INDIA alliance win in Maharashtra," Bhardwaj said. 

AAP has thrown its support behind the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance in Maharashtra, which includes Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena. Meanwhile, the ruling coalition, known as the Mahayuti alliance, is led by the BJP and includes the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction and another faction of the NCP. 

Notably, in the recent Haryana elections, the BJP secured a win by claiming 48 of the 90 seats, forming the government. Congress took 37 seats, while three seats went to Independents and two to the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). AAP, however, failed to win any seats.