NEW DELHI: After aligning for the Lok Sabha elections, the AAP and the Congress will now join hands to take on the BJP in the April 26 MCD election to elect the mayor and deputy mayor, sources said on Wednesday.
As the mayoral polls are set to precede the general elections, the alliance partners are cautious against giving the BJP any ground to infer trouble in their pact.
Besides, the arrest of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has changed the dynamics and made Congress express full solidarity with the AAP.
While no official announcement has been made so far, Congress councillors, who abstained from voting in the last two polls, confirmed that they would support AAP candidates this time. Sources said an announcement in this regard is expected soon.
“Since we are already under the alliance, our support will go to the AAP. We will vote in favour of AAP’s mayor and deputy mayor candidates,” said Shagufta Chaudhary Zubair, Congress councillor from North-East Delhi.
Earlier this year, the AAP and Congress together fought mayor polls in Chandigarh.
Notably, the AAP has the numerical strength to win the mayoral polls without Congress support. The party has 134 councillors from the House of 250 corporators. The BJP comes second at 104 while Congress has 9 members in the House.
Apart from them, 10 MPs (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) and 14 MLAs will also participate in the mayoral election.
Despite the Congress abstaining from voting in previous two elections, the AAP successfully managed to sweep both the posts.
However, the party faced a challenge in winning the standing committee election last time where both AAP and BJP tied up with six members each in a panel of 12.
Sources said the real support from the Congress would come in sweeping majority seats in the committee as well.
The MCD has 12 zones of which the AAP is strongly placed in seven zones. While the BJP is dominant in four zones, the Congress has an upper hand in one.