13 days before the third meeting of the Indian alliance, clashes started between the grand old party Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party over Delhi seat distribution for Lok Sabha polls 2024. On Wednesday both the parties engaged in conflict over contesting the Lok Sabha elections together in the capital. Amid this dispute Congress party organised a meeting with Delhi unit leaders earlier in the day, presided over by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi, and organisation General Secretary KC Venugopal, representatives from the state units of both parties stated that the ball regarding the possibility of an alliance between them for 2024 was firmly in their respective national leaders’ courts.

After the meeting former Congress MLA Alka Lamba said that, “We discussed how to improve the organisation and get ready for the city’s forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Every leader has been urged to start working on these from today with whatever duty is being handed because just seven months are remaining and seven seats are up for grabs.” 

AAP spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar responded angrily to Lamba’s remarks saying, “If the Congress has decided that it would not come together for an alliance with us in Delhi, there is no use in attending the INDIA alliance conference and wasting time. Whether we will attend the upcoming meeting will be decided by our leadership.” Senior AAP leader and Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj also responded, “Our central leadership will decide this,” when asked about the situation. The INDIA parties and our political affairs committee will meet to discuss this.

Senior leaders from both parties said that they will resolve this issue and get clarity on seat distribution in the third meeting of the alliance, which will happen in Mumbai on 30 & 31 August.

When briefing the media, a senior Congress leader claimed that, “A similar gathering also took place two days ago; the state leadership’s opinions are being noted before the new State Unit President is chosen. The choice of the state unit’s leader is important because they will guide the party’s strategy and control its cadre with an eye toward the possibility of a seat-sharing deal with the AAP in Delhi for both the Lok Sabha elections and the Delhi Assembly elections a year later.” Ajay Maken, Haroon Yusuf, Krishna Tirath and Sandeep Dikshit were some of the senior leaders who were present at the meeting.