New Delhi: A decade after Delhi relegated the Congress to the political margins, the poll-bound city remains a conundrum for the party, which is torn between its desire to take the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) head on, and the need to present a united face of the Opposition at the national level.
That political dilemma has come to the fore, with the Congress high command intervening to restrain the party’s national treasurer, Ajay Maken—among its most prominent faces in Delhi—from calling AAP supremo and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal an “anti-national”.
On Sunday, Maken, along with Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav, was scheduled to hold a press conference. Maken had said Saturday that he would elaborate on why he had called Kejriwal a “fraud and anti-national” last month.
However, Maken did not turn up for the press conference, which was cancelled.
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On Monday, Congress sources told ThePrint that the party high command got Maken to call off the press meet as the leadership was “not comfortable with the usage of terms such as ‘anti-national’, which forms part of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) political vocabulary”.
“The party leadership is clear that we will aggressively contest the Delhi polls. And that will obviously involve taking on the ruling AAP. But somewhere, red lines also need to be drawn so that the Congress does not become a mirror image of the BJP. The BJP certifies people as nationalists and anti-nationals, not us,” said a senior Congress leader.
The Congress leadership’s decision to dissuade Maken from doubling down on the allegations against Kejriwal has also come as a facesaver for the AAP, which had publicly threatened to oust the Congress from the national-level INDIA bloc in consultation with other opposition parties if there was no apology from Maken.
It is the second such instance in the last few months when the Congress high command has gone against the suggestion of its Delhi unit in turning the heat on the AAP.
In November-December last year, the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee had taken out a foot march across the city to “expose AAP’s misgovernance”.
However, despite its best efforts, the Delhi unit, sources said, could not persuade Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to join the march or address a rally to mark its culmination.
Sources said that Yadav was left red-faced as a “chaupal”, which was to be addressed by Rahul Gandhi on 11 December, was cancelled at the last minute due to the latter’s “unavailability”, despite the fact that a Parliament session was under way and the entire party leadership was in Delhi.
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Congress guarantees
Even as the Congress put the brakes on Maken’s plans, it unveiled its first poll guarantee at a press conference Monday in the presence of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar: Rs 2,500 per month assistance for women in Delhi. More such promises are in the pipeline.
Over the next week, the party is likely to announce four more guarantees: up to 400 units of free electricity, ration kits containing daily essentials for poor households, an annual health insurance scheme with coverage of up to Rs 25 lakh, and an apprenticeship scheme for unemployed young people.
Shivakumar said the Congress guarantees have been designed keeping rising prices in mind.
“We will fulfil all our promises like we did in Karnataka, where our government remains strong and financially sound,” he said.
Meanwhile, there were enough indications even at Monday’s press conference that notwithstanding the strategic retreat, the AAP would remain in the firing line of the Congress’s Delhi-based leaders.
For instance, Alka Lamba, who has been fielded by the Congress against Chief Minister Atishi from Kalkaji, mocked her opponent, repeatedly calling her a “TCM” (Temporary Chief Minister).
Maken and Sandeep Dikshit, a two-time MP and the son of former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit, have been among the most strident critics of Kejriwal. They represent the faction of the Congress that has consistently opposed any alliance with the AAP, which not only decimated the former in Delhi but also dislodged it from power in Punjab in 2022.
In Gujarat too, the AAP pocketed a vote share of about 13 percent in the assembly polls held in late 2022, while the Congress’s share shrank to 28 percent from 41 percent. Yet, the Congress tied up with the AAP during the Lok Sabha polls last year, sharing seats in Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat, Chandigarh and Goa.
Even during the Haryana assembly polls late last year, Rahul Gandhi was open to the idea of exploring an alliance with the AAP. But the latter’s insistence on seats of its liking led to a breakdown in talks, and both the parties went solo.
The Delhi Congress’s aggression stems from the belief that it is an opportune time for the party to reclaim some ground in the city, which was once its citadel. With Dikshit as CM, the Congress governed Delhi without interruption from 1998 to 2013.
In 2013, the AAP—making its debut in electoral politics after having brought the then UPA government at the Centre to its knees during the India Against Corruption movement of 2011—bagged 28 seats in the 70-member Delhi assembly. The Congress, which had won only eight seats, surprised everyone by extending outside support to the AAP to deny the BJP a shot at power.
Late last month, Maken had said the Congress’s 2013 decision to lend support to the AAP was a “mistake”.
For now, however, the Congress, which has named 48 candidates for the upcoming polls to the Delhi assembly, feels its best bet is performing well in the seven minority-dominated assembly seats of Delhi.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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