‘Don’t blame us’, says Cong as another poll goes wrong for INDIA allies

The reluctance to fight state elections unitedly as the INDIA bloc has cost the Opposition dear yet again — the latest being in Delhi. While the Congress has failed to open its account, the AAP has 23 leads or wins so far, less than half of the BJP’s 47, with its top leaders, including party chief Arvind Kejriwal, biting the dust.

The end of the INDIA bloc is all but evident now, with a bitter Congress spewing venom, not against the BJP but ally AAP. Party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate, while speaking to the NDTV on Saturday (February 8), snapped that it was not the Congress’s responsibility to ensure the AAP’s win.

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Not an inch to ‘ally’

She asserted that if the Congress refused to play second fiddle to the stronger AAP in Delhi, the latter did not agree to do that in at least four other states — Goa, Haryana, Gujarat, and Uttarakhand. She pointed out that in Goa and Uttarakhand, the differences in the vote shares of the Congress and the BJP were what the AAP got — suggesting that had the AAP not played spoilsport, the saffron party might have been defeated in these states.

Notably, the Congress had ruled Delhi for 15 years since 1998, until the AAP ended its run in 2013. “Our responsibility is mounting a spirited campaign and contesting this election (or any other) as strongly as we can,” she told NDTV.

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One defeat after another

The Congress’s leadership of the INDIA bloc has been repeatedly criticised by the allies in recent times as it has miserably failed to rein in the BJP or its allies. The bloc was formed in June 2023 with an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Since then, the primary architect of the Opposition alliance, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), has left the bloc and joined hands with the BJP, the BJP-led NDA has won the general elections even though the saffron party itself suffered a dent, and the BJP or an ally has won most of the 13 state elections.

The INDIA bloc suffered humiliating defeats in Maharashtra and Haryana last year. In both cases, the Congress and its INDIA bloc allies sparred over seat-sharing — with Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra and with the AAP in Haryana. Though the alliance went through in Maharashtra, the rift wasn’t lost on the electorate.

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‘Why must Congress sacrifice every time?’

In the Haryana elections, the AAP had 1.5 per cent of vote share, and yet, Arvind Kejriwal insisted on fighting every seat, Congress national spokesperson Shama Mohamed told NDTV. Complaining that “it is always the Congress sacrificing for everybody else”, she said Kejriwal could have sacrificed in Haryana, indicating that the Congress might have then reciprocated in Delhi.

It was particularly close in Haryana and Uttarakhand. The Congress managed to win only 37 of Haryana’s 90 Assembly seats with the AAP playing spoilsport in at least half a dozen seats. In Uttarakhand, the BJP got 44.3 per cent of the votes; the Congress got 37.9, and the AAP, 4.82. In Goa, their combined votes might not have defeated the BJP but they could have put up a spirited fight. The Congress got 13.5 per cent of the votes and the AAP 12.8 per cent, while the BJP got 40.3 per cent of the votes.

Mohamed blamed Kejriwal’s “megalomaniac behaviour” for the alliance’s falling apart in Delhi, arguing that the Congress has always accommodated its allies — from the DMK in Tamil Nadu to the Shiv Sena (UBT) in Maharashtra and the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.

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‘Don’t blame Congress’

Before the Delhi polls, the rift in the INDIA bloc was wide open, with top leaders from each side — Rahul Gandhi of the Congress and Kejriwal — attacking each other viciously in their respective campaigns.

After remaining undecided for months over how to tackle Delhi, Rahul entered the campaign arena at the last moment, slamming Kejriwal over the alleged liquor policy scam and Yamuna pollution, while the AAP hit back, claiming that the Congress and the BJP were in cahoots with each other to defeat them.

Shrinate, while speaking to NDTV on Saturday, rubbished the allies’ allegations that Congress was behind the AAP’s pathetic Delhi show. She insisted that the Congress would call out Kejriwal for his bad governance in Delhi just as it would the BJP.

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Omar’s dig

Another INDIA ally, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah of the National Conference, summed up in one tweet on Saturday: “Aur lado aapas mein!!!” (keep fighting among yourselves). The NC and the Congress had also teamed up for the Jammu and Kashmir elections last year and the alliance won, though the credit largely goes to the NC.

As for Delhi, Mohamed told NDTV that “at least” the Congress had increased its “vote share”. At this rate, it seems the grand old party has to be satisfied with that for several polls in the near future.