Rahul Gandhi Delhi poll rally
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It is Rahul’s sharp criticism of Kejriwal and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia that is likely to define the Congress’s poll rhetoric in the final lap of the Delhi election campaign. Photo: PTI

Delhi polls: Behind Rahul’s barbs at Kejriwal lies Congress’ resolve for revival

Rahul’s belligerence against Kejriwal, whose party AAP is Congress’ INDIA bloc ally, shows the Congress is prepared to prioritise its electoral revival over coalition dharma, at least in Delhi


After skipping three scheduled public meetings last week due to ill-health, as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi joined his party’s campaign for the Delhi elections on Tuesday (January 28), he unambiguously shed the hesitance he had shown in the past in going all out against INDIA bloc ally, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Tit for tat

With the AAP listing Rahul as a dishonest (beimaan) politician in an election poster last week, the Congress leader repaid in the same coin at his public meetings on Tuesday dubbing AAP chief Kejriwal as the “architect of the country’s biggest liquor scam” who “came promising clean politics” but “built a sheeshmahal for himself.”

Rahul’s campaign speeches in Delhi’s Patparganj and Okhla Assembly segments were, expectedly, full of reiterations of his familiar broadside against the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi – the assertion of an ideological fight between a communally divisive RSS/BJP and a secular Congress, slamming Modi for patronising select capitalists, et al. However, it was Rahul’s sharp criticism of the AAP convenor and even former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia that is likely to define the Congress’s poll rhetoric in the final lap of the Delhi election campaign.

Also read: Delhi polls I Rahul goes all out: 'Kejriwal involved in country's biggest scam'

AAP chief contender

The Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition began his canvassing for the party on Tuesday morning with a visit to the Valmiki Mandir, followed up with a short door-to-door visit and interaction with voters in the New Delhi Assembly segment where Congress candidate Sandeep Dikshit is challenging Kejriwal and the BJP’s Parvesh Verma in a triangular contest. Rahul’s campaign for Dikshit, party sources told The Federal, wasn’t merely to compensate for the last-minute cancellation of his January 20 padyatra in the constituency but, more importantly, to signal that the party saw the AAP as its main rival in the three-cornered electoral contest for Delhi.

This became clear with Rahul’s speech at the public meeting in Patparganj where he slammed Kejriwal saying the AAP chief “disappeared when the poor needed him (during the COVID pandemic) and when Delhi saw violence (during the communal riots that broke out in Northeast Delhi in February 2020 shortly after Kejriwal returned as chief minister for a third time)”. Rahul added, “He (Kejriwal) said he will clean politics, but he did the biggest liquor scam and built a sheeshmahal for himself”.

Barbs at Sisodia

The Congress leader didn’t spare Kejriwal’s closest aide and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia either. “Manish Sisodia, along with Kejriwal, was the architect of the liquor scam... now he has run away from Patparganj,” Rahul said in a clear reference to the AAP’s surprise decision of fielding Sisodia from the Jangpura Assembly seat this time.

Sisodia has been representing the Patparganj constituency since the 2013 Assembly polls, which marked the AAP’s electoral debut, but had won a narrow victory in the 2020 polls with a margin of just over 3000 votes against the BJP’s Ravinder Singh Negi. This election, the AAP moved Sisodia to the Jangpura constituency while fielding popular UPSC coach Avadh Ojha from Patparganj against the Congress’s Anil Chaudhary, a former MLA, and Negi, who has been given the BJP ticket again.

Also read: 'Water terrorism': AAP, BJP spar over Yamuna water as political slugfest continues

That both Kejriwal and Sisodia were now in Rahul’s line of fire was a clear signal that the Congress high command had finally given in to the pleas of its Delhi leadership to raise its pitch against the AAP, which single-handedly pushed the Grand Old Party to the margins of Delhi’s electoral politics over the past decade.

Muslim outreach

At the public meeting in Okhla for Congress candidate Ariba Khan, who is pitted against AAP’s most prominent Muslim face, incumbent MLA Amanatullah Khan, Rahul further scaled up his tirade against the AAP top brass. “I don’t know if leaders of other parties are scared of Modi or not, but Kejriwal surely shivers when he hears the name of Modi,” Rahul said.

With the Congress’s Delhi leadership hopeful of reclaiming its electoral base in Delhi’s seven Muslim-dominated constituencies due to the AAP leadership’s refusal to speak up when the community is targeted, Rahul tactfully singled out Kejriwal’s absence “whenever minorities need him”.

“When hate was being spread in Delhi, when minorities needed Kejriwal, he wasn’t standing with you, but the Congress was,” Rahul said while also slamming the BJP for “spreading hate and fear... attacking minorities and dividing the people”.

The Congress party, Rahul said, “doesn’t want a country that is scared... our message is clear, we will stand against them (the RSS/BJP combine) wherever they spread hate and fear and we will open a mohabbat ki dukaan”.

On unemployment, price rise

This outreach to the Muslims was also evident during Rahul’s meeting in Patparganj earlier in the day when he stopped mid-way into his speech as a mark of respect for the azaan (call to prayer) being given at a nearby mosque.

In Okhla, Rahul also blamed Kejriwal for doing “nothing to address unemployment” or the problems people were facing due to price rise. “Okhla used to be an industrial centre, it had small business, it had industries but what happened to them in the last 10 years,” Rahul asked the crowd before saying, “Modi kha gaya, Kejriwal ne khatm kar diya (Modi and Kejriwal finished them)”.

Also read: Delhi polls | Anti-incumbency at play, but Kejriwal holds fort for AAP with freebies

Kejriwal only good at speeches: Rahul

Recalling the work carried out in Delhi during the Congress’s 15-year reign under late Sheila Dikshit, Rahul accused Kejriwal of “making long speeches” but “doing nothing”. “You have seen 10 years of Kejriwal but you also remember Sheilaji’s 15 years and the progress Delhi made then... Kejriwal only makes long speeches but he doesn’t do anything for Delhi... what has he done for air pollution; people in Delhi can’t breathe today... what has he done for (curbing) unemployment, what has he done to reduce prices; all he does is give long speeches,” Rahul said.

But, Rahul had clearly kept his strongest attack at Kejriwal for the final minutes of his speech in Okhla. “Kejriwal says about himself that he is honest; he is not asking the people whether they think he is honest but he is himself a certificate of honesty... only those who are corrupt need to give themselves such certificates,” Rahul said, making it abundantly clear that the gloves were now truly off and the Congress, which had fought last year’s Lok Sabha polls in Delhi in alliance with the AAP and remains the latter’s ally in the Opposition’s INDIA bloc, was now prepared to prioritise its electoral revival over coalition dharma, at least in Delhi.

AAP left rattled?

That the Congress’s blistering attack had clearly rattled the AAP, which faces its most challenging electoral battle in Delhi this time, was evident in the sharp push back that came from Kejriwal on X minutes after Rahul had completed his day’s campaign with the Okhla meeting.

Also read: Delhi polls | Congress candidates fight their own battles as top brass deserts campaign

The AAP chief alleged that the Congress leader had “repeated the speeches” being given by BJP leaders in the Delhi campaign and asked Rahul to “tell the people what deal has been struck between the BJP and the Congress”. The former Delhi chief minister hit out at Rahul, tweeting, “Modi imprisons people in fake cases like the liquor scam; why have you and your family not been arrested yet in an open and shut case like National Herald? How did Robert Vadra get a clean chit by the BJP? It would be better if you don’t give lectures on fear and bravery; the country knows who is a coward and who is brave?”

With Kejriwal drawing Rahul’s family into his electoral rhetoric, it is clear that the war of words between the two INDIA bloc partners will only escalate as Delhi’s polling date approaches. The Congress’s Delhi unit is finalising the campaign schedules for not just Rahul but also Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is sharper and more unsparing in her criticism of political rivals than her brother, and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge for the remaining days of electioneering.

Also read: Delhi polls | AAP poster features Rahul in list of ‘dishonest' people; Cong hits back

What would, however, be more interesting to see when Delhi finally votes is not whether the Congress is able to regain some of its lost electoral ground in its lost citadel, but whether this heightened acrimony between the Congress and the AAP ends up benefitting the BJP due to a split of anti-BJP votes, paving the way for a saffron government after a 27 year hiatus. Rahul’s new-found belligerence against Kejriwal has made the Delhi elections way more interesting.


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