NEW DELHI: “Anti-national, King of fraud, Farziwal” … Ajay Maken‘s all-out offensive against Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday and AAP‘s strong “take action-ultimatum” to the Congress has sparked a bitter political fight between INDIA bloc‘s allies-turned-rivals in Delhi ahead of the assembly elections to be held early next year.
Raising the pitch against AAP, Maken also claimed that the party’s alliance with Kejriwal in the past was a mistake which needed to be rectified. “I feel the Congress got weakened here (in Delhi) only because of the fact that we supported AAP for 40 days in 2013 (during the first Kejriwal government). Today, this is also one of the biggest reasons for the plight of Delhi. And, I believe that perhaps a mistake has been made again in Delhi by making the alliance (in the last Lok Sabha election), which now needs to be rectified,” Maken said at an event where Delhi Congress released a 12-point White Paper targeting AAP and BJP.
This is not the first time that Ajay Maken has trained his guns at Arvind Kejriwal. Maken has been a vocal critic of Delhi’s AAP government and in the last 10 years has not missed any opportunity to target its policies and governance. He has called Kejriwal an opportunist and has also attacked the AAP supremo over alleged corruption charges.
So, will the Congress national leadership take action against Ajay Maken? The 24-hour-deadline issued by AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Atishi has ended but the Congress is yet to respond to the “ultimatum”.
Ironically, this is not the first time that the Congress faces a situation of confrontation with a regional ally – triggered by its own leader.
We all remember West Bengal, where Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhary made regular headlines for his no-holds barred attack against Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and her government in the state. Adhir, who was the state Congress president, refused to acknowledge the national level alliance between the two parties forged under the INDIA banner. The Congress instead allied with the Left Front in the state. With the Congress’s national leadership looking the other way, the two parties shared a turbulent relationship in the state for several years. However, Adhir’s offensive against Mamata failed to translate into electoral gains and the BJP managed to completely capture the opposition space in the state pushing the Congress and the Left to the corner.
The Trinamool leaders repeatedly petitioned Congress’s national leadership against Adhir’s offensive, but the grand-old-party looked the other way. It was only when Adhir lost his seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections that Congress removed him as the state chief. However, the confrontation left the Congress-Trinamool ties scarred. The fallout of this was evident when Mamata Banerjee staked claim to the leadership of opposition’s INDIA bloc after the Congress’s defeat in the assembly elections of Haryana and Maharashtra.
After West Bengal, the scene of confrontation within the INDIA bloc has now shifted to Delhi. Kejriwal has ruled out tie-up with the Congress for the assembly elections. The Congress, free from the shackles of alliance, has not just unleashed attack on Kejriwal’s government but has also released its list of candidates. If the Congress’s idea in West Bengal was to use Adhir’s offensive to drive a hard bargain with Mamata, the ploy failed. It will be interesting to see how the Congress navigates AAP turbulence in Delhi.
