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Journalism of Courage
Between its show of solidarity with the family of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal after his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and statements by leaders of its Punjab unit welcoming the arrest, the Congress is walking a tightrope in its relationship with INDIA bloc ally, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
While both the parties did not stitch an alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls for the 13 seats in Punjab in view of their state units’ opposition to it there, they have done so in Delhi with the AAP contesting on four and the Congress on three of the national capital’s seven Lok Sabha seats.
Interestingly, Kejriwal’s arrest is based on a batch of complaints alleging a “multi-crore scam” in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy, one of which was filed with the Delhi Police in June 2022 by former Delhi Congress president Chaudhary Anil Kumar.
According to sources, these complaints, including the one lodged by Kumar, were the foundation on which the alleged liquor scam case was built, with the Delhi Vigilance Department report referred to the CBI by L-G V K Saxena, that led to a case of alleged money laundering as registered by the ED.
Official sources have confirmed that another complaint, with allegations of “sedition”, has also been under investigation “at various levels”.This was filed with L-G Saxena in March 2023 by former Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit and his late mother and ex-CM Sheila Dikshit’s Cabinet colleagues Mangat Ram Singhal and Kiran Walia. It demanded that Kejriwal and former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, among others, be booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, for alleged snooping by the now-defunct “Feedback Unit” of the Delhi government.
Kejriwal was arrested by the ED in the liquor policy case on Thursday even as sources from both parties said they were mulling a joint campaign in the city. Within minutes of the arrest, a Congress delegation, led by its Delhi chief Arvinder Singh Lovely, reached the CM’s official Civil Lines residence, even as Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took to X to post a message in support.
But, according to Congress insiders, the extent to which this support can be exhibited in public is tricky. “On behalf of the Congress, Delhi leaders are, and will remain, at the forefront of public appearances in support of Kejriwal and the AAP, as it is our alliance dharma. But in view of the sentiments of our Punjab unit, senior leaders are likely to exhibit solidarity from a distance and only as part of the INDIA – like for example as part of joint delegations to the Election Commission of India (ECI),” said a senior Delhi Congress leader.
“The Delhi alliance is important. But we have to bear in mind that there are (Lok Sabha) elections in Punjab as well. Given these complex equations, balance is of the essence,” said another leader.
Lovely and Priyanka were not the only senior leaders of the grand old party to extend support to the AAP after Kejriwal’s arrest. Sandeep Dikshit, one of the fiercest critics of an alliance with the AAP, was also among the first Congress leaders to call on Kejriwal’s family on Thursday. Another critic of this alliance, AICC treasurer Ajay Maken, though, has not made any statement on Kejriwal’s arrest so far.
On Friday morning, just as party sources confirmed that former Congress president Rahul Gandhi had spoken to Kejriwal’s wife Sunita to express his solidarity, the party’s Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu welcomed the Delhi CM’s arrest on X.
Bittu mockingly stated that the AAP’s Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann should modify his party’s posters and hoardings to claim that in the excise policy case the AAP had taken action against 300 people in Delhi. He suggested that the Punjab CM should increase this number to 301 following Kejriwal’s arrest, and be prepared to raise the figure to 302 once he (Mann) too gets arrested for a similar “scam” in Punjab.
Seeking to distance the party’s Delhi unit from its past statements and complaints while keeping its Punjab leadership placated, a senior Congress leader said the party was “standing openly” with its alliance partner in the capital.
He said that “we can’t give a clean chit to any individual or party over any wrongdoing or illegality. That is for the investigative agencies to assess and act upon. We are not dissociating ourselves from the case, but questioning the timing of his (Kejriwal’s) arrest.”
Why has the BJP-led Centre been going after the Opposition leaders in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, asked another Delhi Congress leader, adding that both the Congress and the AAP were slated to sit down and strategise on how to jointly hit the streets to turn Kejriwal’s arrest into an electoral issue.
“Why have you (the Centre) seized the bank accounts of the Congress? Why have you picked up (Hemant) Soren now, why Kejriwal now…? Our issue is with the damage to democratic values. It is with what the Centre is doing to the Opposition,” the leader added.
Acknowledging the support of the INDIA bloc parties following Kejriwal’s arrest, senior AAP leader and Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, together at a protest with former Delhi Congress minister Haroon Yusuf, said, “We thank the Congress, Left and all other INDIA partners, for their support towards Arvind Kejriwal ji since Day One… Everyone is standing together to save democracy in the country.”
