Congress risks upsetting frenemy AAP as it embarks on revival yatra in Delhi

In his avatar as the Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition, Rahul Gandhi may want to indulge the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in his quest to keep the INDIA bloc united, but the conflicting electoral interests of his party, the Congress, and those of Arvind Kejriwal’s outfit are set to intensify as the Delhi Assembly polls approach.

A decade after the AAP pushed the Congress to the margins of Delhi’s political landscape, the latter now plans to embark on a major public outreach initiative, the Delhi Nyay Yatra (DNY), hoping to end its ignominy over drawing a blank in the last two Delhi Assembly polls.

Congress trains guns on AAP

Fashioned after Rahul’s two Bharat Jodo walkathons that helped revitalise the Congress ahead of this year’s Lok Sabha polls, the DNY aims to cover all 70 Assembly segments of the national capital between November 8 and December 4. With AAP’s tightening political grip over Delhi following its inception in 2013 hitting the Congress the hardest, the sharpest political attacks emanating from the DNY will be directed at Kejriwal’s party.

The publicity material prepared by the Congress Delhi unit for the DNY campaign seeks to directly target Kejriwal and the Atishi-led AAP government in Delhi on a score of issues, including “rampant corruption”, “patronising liquor mafia” and pushing the national capital into unprecedented civic chaos. The DNY campaign videos also mock Kejriwal (dubbed Mango Man in one such clip) and Chief Minister Atishi while other publicity material variously refer to the AAP’s Delhi regime as a “government of thugs” (thugon ki sarkar) and “most corrupt” (kattar bhrashtachari).

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Strained ties with AAP

It is not difficult to imagine how the DNY could complicate Rahul’s efforts of navigating the pulls and pressures innate to the INDIA bloc, both in his capacity as Lok Sabha’s LoP and the main power centre within his own party.

Handling the AAP has never been easy for the Congress. Only last month Rahul had got a taste of how difficult it is even for him to convince his party colleagues to work with AAP when his attempts at roping Kejriwal’s party into a seat-sharing deal for the Haryana Assembly polls was scuttled by the Haryana Congress leadership. The Congress’s Delhi unit too has made it clear to the party high command that it would not accept any alliance with the AAP for the Delhi Assembly polls due early next year. The Congress’s Punjab unit has already been on the warpath against the ruling AAP in the state.

It may be recalled that during this year’s Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had entered into a seat-sharing pact with the AAP for Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat. The Alliance, however, wasn’t beneficial to either party and the leaders from both sides had gone public with allegations and counter allegations of electoral sabotage.

BJP, not Congress is AAP’s true rival in Delhi

That Rahul was still insistent on involving the AAP in the alliance in Haryana had, thus, surprised many. With the Congress losing Haryana unexpectedly, it has become easier for not just the AAP but also other parties of the INDIA bloc to question the Congress’s ability to defeat the BJP without allies.

In this backdrop, the DNY would also dent Rahul’s rhetoric for a united fight against the BJP. The AAP is sure to launch a counter-offensive slamming the Delhi Congress for adding heft to the BJP’s allegations against Kejriwal and the Delhi government as most issues raised in the DNY’s ‘chargesheet’ against the AAP are identical to the claims and criticisms made by the saffron party against Kejriwal and his aides.

Also read: Haryana poll results: How independents, AAP, BSP damaged Congress's chances

It is also widely acknowledged, even within Congress circles, that the Delhi elections would largely be a contest between the AAP and the BJP. Ever since the demise of Sheila Dikshit, the Congress has neither been able to build a strong local leadership in Delhi nor rebuild its support base, a majority of which has, over the past decade, shifted en bloc to the AAP.

Congress pins hopes on yatra to revive fortune

The announcement of the DNY, on Monday (October 28), at Delhi’s Constitution Club was itself a stark reminder of how listless the Delhi Congress had become over the years. The people who shared the stage with Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav were essentially those who, after multiple terms as MLAs during the Halcyon days of the Sheila Dikshit-era, had either failed to even save their security deposits in the past two Delhi elections or those who had never faced a direct election. Prominent Delhi Congress leaders such as AICC Treasurer Ajay Maken and Sheila Dikshit’s son and former MP Sandeep Dikshit were absent.

A senior Delhi Congress leader who was present at the event spoke to The Federal of the “dilemma” that his party finds itself in while expressing hope that the Delhi Nyay Yatra will “at least remind people that there is a party called the Congress in Delhi”.

“We ruled Delhi for 15 years and today we have nothing left here. I do not know what political or electoral impact the yatra will have, but I think it is at least something to remind people that we still exist,” he said.

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“The state that we are in; if we go to AAP asking for an alliance, they will not even offer us 10 seats because they know they don’t need us and you can’t expect the Congress to back out of the election altogether... so, what option do we have except fighting solo; the yatra will hopefully help us regain some ground in areas where there is resentment against AAP and where the BJP too isn’t strong,” this leader added.

‘Yatra more about Congress’ survival than defeating AAP’

Another Delhi Congress leader, a former Lok Sabha MP, conceded to The Federal that the DNY was “more about our own survival in Delhi than about defeating the AAP or the BJP in the Assembly election.” “As of now, forget replacing AAP from power, we don’t even have the electoral strength to emerge as kingmakers in Delhi in the event of a hung verdict, but if we don’t do anything now, we will never revive... even this (the DNY) is a very late initiative,” the MP said.

“We cannot give the AAP a free pass because wherever it grows; be it in Delhi, Gujarat or Punjab, it grows at our cost... this is why AAP’s position as our ally in the INDIA bloc cannot be compared to that of the Left Front; we can justify doing business with the Left because our ideologies are same and, barring Kerala, the Left is not our direct rival anywhere else but with AAP, which anyway has no ideology, we are rivals everywhere (sic),” the MP added.

Also read: Change at AAP: What does it mean for Kejriwal, Atishi and Delhi

Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav said that the yatra, which will cover all 70 Assembly constituencies between November 8 and December 4, will “remind the people of Delhi of the phenomenal development work that we did during the 15 years of Sheila ji’s government and how that sapnon ki Dilli (Delhi of dreams) has been turned into a nightmare by the AAP, which has given the people only lies, corruption, liquor mafia, (water) tanker mafia, poisonous air and poisonous Yamuna”.

Yatra to cover 70 Assembly constituencies

A former three-term Badli MLA, Yadav said the DNY will be held in four phases of six days each. “The Delhi Nyay Yatra will be flagged off from Mahatma Gandhi’s samadhi at Rajghat on November 8 and will cover 16 Assembly constituencies in the first phase. The second phase will cover 18 assembly segments between November 15 and 20, the third phase will start on November 22 and go through 16 assembly segments while the remaining 20 assembly constituencies will be covered between November 29 and December 4. We will set up camps at different places in Delhi, we will talk to everyone and not only remind them of what we had done when we were in power but also understand the problems they are facing today and how to find a solution for them.”

Asked whether Rahul would lead the DNY just as he led the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, Yadav said the Lok Sabha LoP would “definitely participate in the yatra, we all want him and the entire top leadership of the party, including our president (Mallikarjun Kharge) and Priyanka Gandhi to be there, but this is a yatra being organised by the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee and so a majority of the participation will be from our Delhi leaders”.

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No AAP-Cong alliance for Delhi Assembly polls

The Delhi Congress chief also asserted that there will be “no alliance” between the AAP and the Congress for the Delhi Assembly polls, dubbing Kejriwal’s party and the BJP “two sides of the same coin”.

However, Yadav was ill at ease responding to questions on how Rahul, Kharge and other central leaders of the party would engage with the AAP at meetings of the INDIA bloc when the Delhi Congress is going door to door dubbing Kejriwal as the “most corrupt politician in Delhi”. “The INDIA bloc is a national-level alliance against the BJP but in Delhi, we are fighting both AAP and the BJP,” Yadav said but declined to comment on The Federal question of how he would explain to the Delhi voter the Congress’s attacks on Kejriwal while the AAP remains the party’s ally in the INDIA bloc.