Cong workers say no to alliance with AAP

NEW DELHI: As many as 22,000 workers of the Delhi Congress are against an alliance with the AAP in the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections, shows feedback received on the party’s mobile application ’Shakti App’.

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president Ajay Maken said 45,000 Congress workers registered on the application were asked, “Should the Congress party have an alliance with Kejriwal’s party or not?”

“22,000 workers replied unanimously that the Congress should not have any alliance with the AAP,” Maken said.

AAP leaders have already turned down any chances of an alliance with the Congress with senior party leader Gopal Rai saying the Congress was not even a strong player. “The rest of the workers did not respond at all,” said DPCC general secretary Chattar Singh.

In the run-up to elections, Delhi Congress, like other state units of the party, had rolled out the initiative to connect with grassroots workers, train and then encourage them to enroll new members through the ’Shakti App’ launched earlier this year. In the credit-based system, each worker is supposed to enrol people by sending a message to a mobile number. With every new registration, a worker gets points or credits.

The party, meanwhile, appointed a team of 20 workers on each of the 13,800 polling booths in the capital. The booth-level committees will sharing the party’s stand on national and local issues with the voters.

“This is for the first time the party has taken up such a big exercise in Delhi, which is led by booth-level leaders,” Maken said.

The party is planning a convention of all 13,800 committees at Ramlila Maidan on December 3, scheduled to be addressed by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.