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Gloves off between Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, where does INDIA go from here

Even when they were allied, the Congress leader and AAP supremo were not able to put tensions between them aside for a joint appearance outside the INDIA platform.

Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is the only regional outfit to have ousted Rahul Gandhi's Congress from power in two states (Delhi and Punjab) in recent history. (PTI Photos)

That there is no love lost between Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi is well-known. Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is the only regional outfit to have ousted the Congress from power in two states (Delhi and Punjab) in recent history. Besides, Rahul, like most Congress leaders, believes it was the Anna Hazare movement, of which Kejriwal was a part, that triggered the party’s nationwide collapse over a decade ago.

Campaigning for the Assembly elections in Punjab in 2022, the Congress leader went so far as to say that the AAP chief could be found “at the home of a terrorist”, referring to Kejriwal’s stay at the house of a former militant ahead of the 2017 elections – a line of attack that mirrored the BJP’s.

However, occasionally in the past, Kejriwal and Gandhi have managed to project a bonhomie against common enemy BJP. Kejriwal slammed the BJP when Gandhi was disqualified from Parliament, while Gandhi hit out at the BJP when Kejriwal was arrested.

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Still, the two could never put the animus behind enough to share a platform, for example – apart from the meetings of the INDIA bloc. Even when the Congress and AAP fought the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Delhi in alliance – and Gandhi noted famously that it was interesting that while he would vote for the first time for an AAP candidate in the New Delhi seat, Kejriwal would cast his vote for the Congress nominee in Chandni Chowk – the two never campaigned together.

So, it was not entirely unexpected that, with the chances of a tie-up between the two parties falling through, Gandhi would start his Delhi campaign with a scathing attack on Kejriwal.

Gandhi’s words would have certainly warmed the hearts of a large section of the state Congress, which has been opposed to any truck with the AAP, but it will muddy the already roiled INDIA bloc waters. Several INDIA parties, including the Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party and Shiv Sena (UBT), have extended their support to the AAP in Delhi.

During the Lok Sabha, conscious of the inherent contradictions within the alliance, Gandhi had ensured a channel of communication open with the CPI(M) central leadership (read the late Sitaram Yechury) even as he attacked Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

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In West Bengal, Gandhi had attacked the TMC government during the 2021 Assembly elections but refrained from criticising Mamata Banerjee personally. In fact, he addressed just two rallies during the Bengal campaign, with the Congress and Left contesting in alliance.

But in Delhi, the gloves are off. Apart from the bad blood, what is different here is that the Congress leadership, including the Gandhis, knows that a Congress resurgence in the Capital is possible only if the fortunes of the AAP slide. It was after the Congress’s shock defeat in Delhi in 2013 – ending the party’s 15-year run in the Capital – that Gandhi promised to radically transform the Congress in ways that “people cannot even imagine”.

It’s another matter that, since then, the Congress has gone through three successive Lok Sabha routs, and not won a single Assembly or Lok Sabha seat in Delhi.

The 2013 defeat marked the loss of another state by the Congress to a regional party. The TDP and BRS came to power in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 2014 ousting the Congress from power. The Shiromani Akali Dal did the same in Punjab in 2007.

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By also defeating the Congress in Punjab in 2022, the AAP has become the only regional force to oust the party from power in two states.

A day after launching his attack on Kejriwal at his first Delhi rally, even equating him with Narendra Modi when it comes to backward classes, Gandhi Tuesday put out a video mocking the AAP chief for his promise to “make Delhi as beautiful as Paris, London”. Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh shared an old video of Kejriwal purportedly backing reservations on economic criteria, and said this explained his “silence” on caste census.

Congress leaders played down the apprehension that the strident attack on Kejriwal may impact the INDIA bloc, and said it was but natural that the party cannot enter into an alliance with the AAP in Delhi and Punjab, or the Left in Kerala and the TMC in Bengal.

They also gave the same argument as extended by other INDIA leaders recently, that the INDIA bloc was formed to take on the BJP at the “national” level. But then this strengthens questions about the relevance of the alliance till the next general elections. As it is, the INDIA bloc has not met since the Lok Sabha elections. There is an element of floor coordination in Parliament, but little else.

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However, Congress leaders insist the talk of a rift in the alliance will die down once the Delhi elections are over. In Bihar, where Assembly polls are due this year end, INDIA parties RJD, Congress and Left have been together for a while.

But then come the elections of 2026. While Tamil Nadu and Assam may be smooth going, West Bengal and Kerala elections will have INDIA parties in contest again.