Tharoor, Sharmistha, PC wade in as rout leads to blame game in Cong

The Congress party, it seems, has set itself into a blame-game mode after its rout in the Delhi Assembly election.

A day after the Delhi election results were out, senior party leader PC Chacko quit as Delhi Congress in-charge, on Wednesday (February 12). He stirred up a controversy by blaming former Chief Minister Sheila Dixit for the loss.

“The party’s downfall started in 2013 when Sheila ji was chief minister. The emergence of new party AAP took away the Congress votebank,” he said.

The former MP faced heavy backlash from party members for speaking ill of a highly respected leader who passed away in July last year

Mumbai Congress chief Milind Deora expressed displeasure over Chacko’s comments in a tweet.

Sheila Dikshit ji was a remarkable politician & administrator. During her tenure as Chief Minister, Delhi was transformed & Congress was stronger than ever.

Unfortunate to see her being blamed after her death. She dedicated her life to @INCIndia & the people of Delhi https://t.co/XwQPlHE6cw

— Milind Deora मिलिंद देवरा (@milinddeora) February 12, 2020

In the elections, the Congress’s 63 candidates lost their security deposits out of the total 70. (Candidates pay a security deposit of ₹10,000 to contest in assembly elections. Failing to get one sixth of votes in their constituencies, election commission acquires the deposit.)

Earlier, Congress leader Sharmishtha Mukherjee took on senior party leader and ex-Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, who had lauded AAP’s win as ‘defeat of bluff and bluster.’

AAP won, bluff and bluster lost. The people of Delhi, who are from all parts of India, have defeated the polarising, divisive and dangerous agenda of the BJP

I salute the people of Delhi who have set an example to other states that will hold their elections in 2021 and 2022

— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) February 11, 2020

She said the Congress leadership should clarify if the party has decided to outsource the task of taking on the BJP to regional parties.

With due respect sir, just want to know- has @INCIndia outsourced the task of defeating BJP to state parties? If not, then why r we gloating over AAP victory rather than being concerned abt our drubbing? And if ‘yes’, then we (PCCs) might as well close shop! https://t.co/Zw3KJIfsRx

— Sharmistha Mukherjee (@Sharmistha_GK) February 11, 2020

Sharmistha is the daughter of former President Pranab Mukherjee, a former Congress leader.

The Congress drew a blank for the second time in Delhi elections and its vote share plummeted to 4.26 per cent from 9.7 per cent in 2015. To dismantle the claims of Chacko, Dikshit’s former aide Pawan Khera presented a data point to show that vote share percentage was high whenever Sheila Dikshit was at the helm of affairs.

Just a data point. In 2013, when we lost, @INCIndia vote share in Delhi was 24.55%. Sheila ji was not involved in 2015, when the vote share slipped to 9.7%. In 2019, when she was back in charge, the vote share came up to 22.46%. https://t.co/MvwHouRILh

— Pawan Khera (@Pawankhera) February 12, 2020

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor even posted an Urdu couplet on Twitter which read, ‘one is taking pride in someone else’s victory, even in the party’s defeat,’ taking a dig at Chidambaram’s tweet.

In a separate tweet, he said that the Delhi results were a disappointment for Congress but there were consolations such as BJP’s divisive politics being rejected and Delhi electorate choosing development over identity politics.