PANAJI
Senior Congress leader, Salman Kurshid, on Monday said talks with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over seat sharing are on and they are "cordial" in a bid to clear the air over the confusion arising out of the latter's unilateral announcement of the candidature of its Benaulim MLA, Venzy Viegas, for the South Goa seat.
"We’ve had several rounds of talks. The discussions have been cordial. There has been no discomfort whatsoever. Even as we speak there are discussions taking place. We will come out with a solution and make a joint statement," Khurshid who is part of Congress' coordination panel for seat sharing with INDIA allies, said.
Admitting that AAP did make some unilateral announcements related to the seat sharing issue, Khurshid said as far as Punjab is concerned, it was "consensual" (between Congress and AAP).
"But there are some issues with regard to seats in Union Territories (Chandigarh and Delhi) besides some in Gujarat and Goa," Khurshid said, adding that it would have been better if the public announcement (by AAP) was done jointly with all the allies.
The AAP had last week announced in Delhi that it will fight all the 12 seats in Punjab and one in Chandigarh on its own even as it also announced the name of Viegas as its candidate for South Goa, which evoked sharp reactions from the Goa unit of the Congress including sitting MP Francisco Sardinha.
Incidentally, Sardinha was sitting besides Khurshid when he made the comments in response to queries posed by journalists at the press conference he addressed on Monday in Panaji.
