Wary of INDIA rift, Congress plays safe around AAP, leaves Delhi unit out on a limb

The Congress, on Thursday (December 12), declared its first list of 21 candidates for the upcoming Delhi assembly elections. The party’s move came a day after its Delhi leadership and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) vociferously rejected any possibility of a pre-poll alliance for the elections scheduled in early February.

The Congress has nominated former MP Sandeep Dikshit, son of late Sheila Dikshit, as its candidate from the New Delhi constituency, which AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal has held since 2013. Though the AAP hasn’t yet declared its candidate from the constituency, it is widely anticipated that Kejriwal will seek re-election from the New Delhi constituency.

“Exposing Kejriwal’s lies for 10 years”

A bitter critic of Kejriwal, who incidentally made his victorious electoral debut in 2013 by defeating then third-term Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit, Sandeep has been at the vanguard of the Delhi Congress’s efforts in convincing the party’s central leadership of snapping all ties with the AAP, a constituent of the Congress-led INDIA bloc.

Also read: Delhi polls: AAP 2nd list betrays unease; 16 MLAs benched to battle anti-incumbency

On being named the party’s pick from Kejriwal’s constituency, Sandeep declined to comment on the AAP’s continuing ties with the Congress by virtue of being part of the INDIA bloc. But the former East Delhi MP told The Federal, “For the last 10 years, I have been exposing the lies and failures of Kejriwal and his government and I will continue to do so when I go to the people of the constituency... if Kejriwal has the guts, he should answer my questions but I know he will not.”

Prominent candidates

Other prominent candidates in the Congress’s first list are incumbent Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav from the Badli assembly segment, former Delhi Congress chief Anil Chaudhary who will face off against the AAP’s Avadh Ojha in Patparganj, former five-term MLA and the party’s Muslim face in Delhi, Haroon Yusuf, from his traditional Ballimaran seat, Congress’s national spokesperson Ragini Nayak from Wazirabad and incumbent Seelampur MLA Abdul Rehman, who joined the Congress earlier this week after quitting the AAP.

The Congress has also decided to field Mudit Agarwal, son of former six-term MP Jai Prakash Agarwal, from the Chandni Chowk constituency where he will take on the AAP’s Purandeep Sawhney, son of former Congress leader and incumbent AAP MLA Parlad Singh Sawhney. Former AAP MLA Adarsh Shastri, grandson of former Prime Minister late Lal Bahadur Shastri, has been nominated by the party from the Dwarka constituency while former Delhi minister Mangat Ram Singhal’s son Shivank Singhal and AICC secretary and former Delhi councillor Abhishek Dutt have been fielded from the Adarsh Nagar and Kasturba Nagar seats, respectively.

Victory or fight

Congress sources said that the party’s first list is focused on constituencies where it fancies a “chance of victory or, at least, giving a very tough fight to the AAP”. The party is desperately seeking to end its ignominious record of the past decade during which it failed to win a single seat in the same Delhi Assembly in which it enjoyed a majority for 15 long years until the AAP’s ascent in 2013.

Also read: Alliance with Congress for Delhi polls not possible: Kejriwal

Senior party leader TS Singh Deo, who is a member of the Congress Election Committee that screens candidates for various polls, unwittingly gave away the anxieties that haunt the party as it prepares for the triangular electoral showdown in Delhi against its far more formidable opponents, the ruling AAP and principal opposition, the BJP. In a statement that hasn’t gone down well with the Delhi leadership of the Congress, Singh his party’s intention was “not to defeat the ruling party,” but to ensure that the Congress “succeeds in regaining the trust of the people of Delhi and reviving itself.”

Cautious and clueless Congress

Sandeep Dikshit, who will face off against Kejriwal, too, refrained from making any bombastic claims about the victory prospects of his party or his own. The former Lok Sabha MP, however, expressed confidence that the “next government in Delhi will not be formed without support of the Congress”, a statement that party insiders say encapsulates the “confusion” that reigns supreme in the Congress over its electoral strategy and revival plans in Delhi.

“The problem is that we simply do not know how to regain the trust of the people of Delhi, what our strategy should be... if Sandeep has said that the next government in Delhi will not be formed without the Congress’s support then it only shows how confused we are... does he mean he and the rest of the Delhi unit will fight against the AAP but get into a post-poll tie up if AAP doesn’t get a majority? If this is the case, why is the Delhi unit so opposed to a pre-poll alliance with Kejriwal? Has the central leadership told the Delhi unit to keep doors open for pre- or post-poll negotiations with the AAP?” a senior AICC functionary from Delhi told The Federal.

Congress still open to alliance

Congress insiders say the party high command was willing to negotiate a seat-sharing formula with the AAP in Delhi and was even open to fighting just a dozen odd seats. However, just as the Congress’s Haryana leadership scuttled Rahul Gandhi’s plan of tying up with AAP for the recent assembly election in the state, the Congress’s Delhi unit too has resisted all efforts of reviving the alliance with Kejriwal after the two parties jointly contested Lok Sabha polls in the national capital this June and drew a blank.

Also read: Kejriwal launches Rs 1,000/month scheme for women, promises Rs 2,100 post-polls

A section of Delhi Congress leaders believes the AAP’s presence in the INDIA bloc and Rahul’s “compulsion” as Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha to prevent cracks within the opposition alliance nationally has practically left the party’s Delhi unit to fend for itself.

Senior leaders missing from Delhi Nyay Yatra

Last month, Delhi Congress chief and now the party’s candidate from the Badli assembly constituency, Devender Yadav, had launched a month-long Delhi Nyay Yatra in the hope of revitalising the party ahead of the assembly polls. The DNY ended earlier this month, but through the course of its four phases that covered all 70 assembly segments of the national capital, no member of the Congress high command — party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi — felt it necessary to join the outreach campaign. Even senior AICC functionaries, including general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal and communications department chief Jairam Ramesh gave the DNY a miss.

The Delhi unit had then planned a Nyay Chaupal on December, a sit-in interaction between Rahul and a cross-section of Delhi’s residents, earlier this week. The media, too, was informed about the event scheduled for December 11. However, late evening on December 10, the Nyay Chaupal was suddenly called off without offering any explanation.

Rahul wary of Kejriwal

Congress sources say Rahul doesn’t want to push Kejriwal to a point where the AAP is forced to walk out of the INDIA bloc, especially now when various constituents of the alliance are openly criticising the Congress for its inability to defeat the BJP in Maharashtra and Haryana as also for failing to build on the electoral momentum that the alliance had picked up in the Lok Sabha polls. A prominent section of the Congress’s Delhi Unit, however, has been desperately trying to convince Rahul to not give AAP such a wide berth, arguing instead that the party would be finished for good in Delhi if it allowed Kejriwal to recoup electorally after the many setbacks his party has faced recently due to allegations of corruption.

Also read: Delhi polls: Kejriwal offers Rs 10 lakh insurance for auto drivers

The Congress’s top leadership, sources say, wishes to explore a middle path which allows the party to focus on a handful of constituencies in Delhi where it sees a realistic chance of electoral revival. In the remaining assembly segments, the AAP is likely to be given a free run by the Congress as Rahul doesn’t want his party to be accused by Kejriwal and other INDIA bloc partners of splitting AAP votes to the BJP’s advantage.

Hopes alive for backchannel talks

As such, with the exception of Sandeep Dikshit being pitted from the New Delhi seat that Kejriwal is widely expected to seek re-election from and a couple of other segments, such as Patparganj and Seelampur, the Congress, in its first list, has named candidates largely on seats where the AAP hasn’t announced its candidates so far.

Some in the Congress still believe that backchannel talks with the AAP for securing a “respectable” seat-sharing formula are still possible and the Congress’s first list, which does feature some strong candidates, could prove to be a good pressure tactic by the party. AAP leaders such as Sanjay Singh and Sandeep Pathak though continue to assert that “leaving even one seat for the Congress in Delhi would mean a walkover to the BJP” and that the Grand Old Party “has no organisation or grassroots presence” left in Delhi to be harnessed for electoral recovery.