Punjab slugfest exposes chinks in AAP-Congress’s complicated ties

The Congress and the AAP may be contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as allies in Delhi, Gujarat, and Haryana, but the growing acrimony between them in Punjab, where, according to AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal, the partners “mutually agreed” to contest separately, could cast a long shadow on the terms of engagement between the two INDIA bloc parties.

Uproarious scenes in the Punjab Assembly on Monday (March 4) saw the AAP’s Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann not just launching a blistering attack against the Congress’s Partap Singh Bajwa, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Sukhpal Khaira, and Sukhwinder Singh Kotli, but even dragging former Congress chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi into the verbal duel.

Mann’s theatrics

The heated exchange between the Punjab CM and the Congress MLAs began following unprecedented theatrics by Mann, who presented Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan a lock and key and urged him to “have the Assembly doors locked from inside” so that Opposition members “sit and listen to us and cannot walk out”. Expectedly provoked by the CM’s move, Congress MLAs led by Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa trooped into the Well of the House in protest.

What followed were nearly 20 minutes of vitriolic outbursts between Mann and the Congress leaders during which the CM dared Bajwa to tell Sonia and Rahul to break the pre-poll alliance between their two parties in Delhi, Gujarat, and Haryana. “Who do Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi sit with (for seat-sharing negotiations)? They sit with me. Have you ever sat with them? ... Do they listen to you? ... If they listen to you, go and tell them not to give the Kurukshetra (the Lok Sabha seat in Haryana that AAP will contest as part of its alliance with Congress), Delhi, and Gujarat seats to us,” Mann told Bajwa.

“Class ka nalayak bachcha”

While the Congress leaders repeatedly urged the Speaker to “bring the House in order”, rein in the CM and follow House protocols, Mann shot back telling them to “sit down and listen to us”. As Bajwa and other Congress leaders refused to take their seats, Mann likened the LoP to a “class ka nalayak bachcha” (worthless child in a classroom) who is made to stand during classes and said, “You can keep standing but you cannot leave the Assembly; you have to listen to me and the issues of Punjab... This is why I am getting the doors locked from inside.”

As tempers on either side soared, Sandhwan was forced to adjourn the proceedings for 15 minutes. Punjab Congress chief and Gidderbaha MLA Amarinder Singh Raja Warring told The Federal that the ruckus continued in the House even after the adjournment as AAP MLAs “tried to heckle Bajwa” at Mann’s provocation.

“Insult” to Dalits

The chaos poured outside the Assembly, too, when, later in the day, Congress’s Adampur MLA and Dalit leader Sukhwinder Singh Kotli broke down during an interaction with the media, claiming that the CM had “insulted Dalits”. Kotli said that he and some other party MLAs were demanding that Mann fulfils his poll promise of appointing a deputy chief minister from the Dalit community when the CM “made derogatory remarks against me” and said “inno daura pe gaya, inno jutti sunghao (he is having a fit, make him smell a shoe)”.

Slamming the CM for using a “highly objectionable” phrase against a Dalit MLA, Bajwa demanded that Mann must “tender an apology publicly and resign from the position of CM”. The Punjab Congress veteran also dared Mann to an electoral contest, claiming that he would be ready to fight elections against the CM from any constituency that the latter chooses.

Complication of alliance

In the normal course, such rancour between the Treasury and principal Opposition could, perhaps, be dismissed as a routine slanging match, the political ramifications of which would not go beyond the borders of the state concerned. Yet, given that the heightened tensions between the AAP and Congress in Punjab come in the backdrop of their pre-poll alliance in other states and just weeks before the country goes to polls, leaders from both parties conceded that such flagrant animosity is bound to impact the electoral prospects of the two allies in states where they are in coalition.

A senior Punjab Congress MLA told The Federal, “The Akali Dal in Punjab and the BJP are bound to exploit this electorally; we had cautioned the Congress high command of such a complication in the event of any tie-up with the AAP... We are not in alliance in Punjab and we will fight the AAP with everything we have, but the Akalis and the BJP will also leave no stone unturned to convince the voters that the Congress and AAP are cheating them by fighting each other in Punjab but fighting as allies in other states”.

“No option” for Mann?

AAP insiders from Punjab echoed the same view. Though admitting the Mann “could have been a bit restrained in his language” while attacking the Congress considering the alliance between the two parties in other states, an AAP MLA from Punjab explained that “the CM, perhaps, has no option but to go on the offensive against the Congress... Bajwa and others are trying to project our government as anti-farmer in the wake of the Zero FIR filed in the Shubhkaran Singh death case by the Punjab police”. The 22-year-old farmer from Punjab was killed in police action against protesting farmers at the Haryana-Punjab border on February 21.

The AAP MLA added, “The Congress has also been alleging that we have not fulfilled our poll promises to farmers... Punjab is an agrarian state, and farmer issues are always an emotive plank during elections; maybe the CM thinks the Congress’s narrative will damage the AAP in the Lok Sabha polls and so he needs to launch a counter-offensive.”

“Double agent” jibe

The palpable complications of the ties between the AAP and the Congress — enemies in Punjab and allies elsewhere — have predictably cheered the BJP and Akalis. Manjinder Singh Sirsa, BJP spokesperson and former MLA from Delhi’s Rajouri Garden constituency, called the argument between Mann and Bajwa a “nautanki” (drama) by the AAP and Congress to “fool the voters ahead of the Lok Sabha polls”.

Meanwhile, Akali Dal veteran Bikram Singh Majithia took a swipe at Bajwa while referring to Mann’s claim of being the person with whom Sonia and Rahul deliberate on issues of the AAP-Congress. Majithia dubbed the Punjab CM as a “double agent of the Congress and AAP” who had now “admitted to his closeness” with the Gandhi family.