AAP hits out at Congress for fighting Delhi polls ‘to make BJP win’; party hits back, ‘you first introspect’

On being asked if it was okay if the BJP won as a fallout of AAP’s defeat, Yadav was heard saying, “During the CEC [Central Election Committee] meeting, this was discussed with Mallikarjun Kharge ji and Rahul Gandhi ji, and we decided that we should go all out.”

Seizing on these remarks, the AAP’s Delhi unit chief, Saurabh Bharadwaj, addressed a press conference on Monday, terming it a “big revelation” and criticising the Congress’s senior leadership.

Citing Election Commission data, AAP questioned the Congress for overspending in the polls, and alleged that the Rs 44 crore Congress raised was used not to secure victory for itself but to “defeat AAP and help the BJP”.

The party also pointed to Congress’s decision to field senior leaders directly against AAP’s top brass—Sandeep Dikshit against Kejriwal, Farhad Suri against Sisodia, and Alka Lamba against Atishi—as evidence of a targeted strategy.

In an unusual post-election image from the BJP government’s swearing-in ceremony in Delhi, Yadav was seen on stage alongside AAP’s rebel MP Swati Maliwal.

AAP’s Punjab poll in-charge and former Delhi deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia, took to X and wrote: “Whatever Congress did during the Delhi assembly elections to make BJP win was clearly visible behind the scenes, but now Delhi Congress state president Devendra Yadav himself has come on camera and admitted that it was true that Congress fought the elections in Delhi not to win, but to make BJP win.”

Atishi also wrote on X that the two parties “pretend to fight on the surface, but maintain friendship behind the scenes”.

The Congress, meanwhile, rejected AAP’s charge. Delhi Congress media cell chairman Anil Bhardwaj claimed that the remarks are based on a “selective editing” of Yadav’s interview. He also turned the tables, accusing AAP of helping the BJP by splitting Opposition votes in other states. “AAP fielded candidates in Goa, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, and Haryana with the sole intention of cutting into Congress’s support base,” he said.

He said that AAP had built its rise in Delhi on sharp allegations against the late former CM Sheila Dikshit, which were never substantiated, while its own government now “faces multiple corruption charges”.

“Before blaming the Congress, AAP should first introspect,” Bhardwaj added.

AAP vs Congress in Punjab

The Congress has not won a Delhi Assembly seat since 2015, nor has it sent an MP from the capital since 2009. But in Punjab, it remains AAP’s principal challenger, finishing a close second in the 2022 Assembly polls. With anti-incumbency simmering against the AAP government in Punjab, the Congress is positioned as the main alternative for voters. BJP’s vote share stood at just 6 per cent in the 2022 Assembly elections in the state.

AAP’s attempt to discredit Congress in Punjab by projecting it as aligned with the BJP seems to hold a broader message: Congress cannot be trusted as a genuine Opposition force, and only AAP is capable of taking on the BJP nationally. Punjab remains crucial for AAP’s national positioning—it is the state governed by the party after its Delhi poll debacle.