Congress’s senior leader and minority mascot, Salman Khurshid, said winds are not blowing in the party’s favour this time and the February 7 Assembly elections will be hard for them. He, however, said the Congress is a long-distance runner and keeps the belief that there is a place for it in Delhi’s heart. Speaking to Newsline, Khurshid said though the AAP has been trying to steer away the minority votes to itself, it appears that the Congress has consolidated the minority vote share further this time. “The Congress is hoping that it can trigger off its outreach in the city because somewhere in the heart of Delhi there is a place for the Congress,” Khurshid said. He began campaigning in the capital on Sunday. He said minority votes have always been with the Congress, as seen in the last elections. About there being an alternative party the minorities might be looking at, Khurshid said, “The AAP has been trying to steer away minority votes to itself. But the Congress looks like it has consolidated its minority support even further this time. But we can’t win an election only on the basis of minority votes.” “The AAP wooed the urban voterbase entirely last time. But I hope that has changed on the ground. The AAP seems to think the voter is foolish. But the voter is very smart. The AAP moment has passed in Delhi, something the AAP will be unpleasantly surprised about,” he said. About the BJP, Khurshid said they were trying hard to play the party-at- the-Centre card. “But its a simplistic theory to say that the party at the Centre, if voted to power in Delhi, will work better. It’s not necessary. Why didn’t Gujarat vote the other way when the Congress was in power at the Centre? There are always small disagreements between the Centre and the state anyway. There can be disagreements between the two governments even when they are formed by the same party.” About the sudden arrival of Kiran Bedi, Khurshid said, “They had to find someone who has herself been saying that she is an outsider. Are they playing rent-a-leader? How can Bedi, as an outsider, go right to the top? If she were an MLA or had she been a part of the party, it was still understandable.” He said he had a problem, not with her statements about the RSS being an organisation working for national unity, but with her inconsistency. If she had made these statements a decade ago or even two years ago, I would understand. But this sudden declaration is worrying,” Khurshid said.
