The alliance talks between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) finally collapsed on Friday with both parties bitterly blaming each other for the failure.

While the Congress formally declared its readiness to contest all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and also finalised the names of four candidates, Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP too said the alliance wasn’t possible because of the “rigidity and arrogance” of the principal Opposition party.

The AAP went so far as to accuse the Congress of conspiring to facilitate the BJP’s victory in the country.

AAP general secretary Sanjay Singh said: “The Congress is deliberately damaging Opposition prospects in the entire country. They are doing it in Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Goa…. Their sole intention is to help the BJP. Why they are doing it, what is their compulsion, is known to them only.”

The AAP leader, who had been negotiating with the Congress’s Delhi in-charge P.C. Chacko, added: “We have 20 MLAs and four Lok Sabha MPs in Punjab. But the Congress is not giving us a single seat there…. Our candidate came second in Chandigarh in 2014 but they won’t consider that they currently have only one MP in Haryana but won’t leave a single seat for us there. We got 6 per cent votes in Goa. They are damaging the Opposition unity in the entire country.”

The Congress had never offered any hope to the AAP in Punjab, where chief minister Amarinder Singh had announced there would be no alliance with anybody. Even for Haryana, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had declared the party was not negotiating with any outfit.

That Chacko was negotiating with the AAP was a clear indication that the talks were restricted to Delhi.

While the entire Delhi unit of the Congress except former chief Ajay Maken had opposed any understanding with the AAP, Rahul Gandhi had instructed Chacko to hold negotiations under pressure from Opposition veterans such as Sharad Pawar, Sharad Yadav, Yashwant Sinha, Mamata Banerjee and Chandrababu Naidu.

An understanding had emerged that the Congress would contest three of the seven seats in Delhi while the AAP would contest four.

Chacko said on Friday: “There was no negotiation for any other state. We almost reached an understanding for Delhi on a 4-3 basis. But the AAP never intended to align with the Congress and finally they invented excuses to wriggle out…. We walked the extra mile for the alliance but they opted out. Now we will contest all the seven seats.”

Chacko did leave a window open by saying that the Congress would announce the names of the three other candidates after two days, but the AAP refused a rethink.

The protracted negotiations and suspense are bound to affect the credibility of both parties and help the BJP.

The Congress will struggle to recreate its anti-AAP narrative to reclaim the secular space. Without this confusion, the Congress could have established itself as the main claimant of the anti-Narendra Modi votes in Delhi, many believe.

While Kapil Sibal will contest from Chandni Chowk, the other three Congress candidates whose names were announced on Friday are J.P. Agarwal (Northeast Delhi), Maken (New Delhi) and Raj Kumar Chauhan (Northwest Delhi).

Former Congress MP Krishna Tirath, who had joined the BJP in 2014, returned to the party on Friday.