The situation in Delhi is becoming tough for the Congress high command with every passing day as they are witnessing a standoff between the two main pillars of the Delhi Congress. The bone of contention is the question of alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Ajay Maken, the former Congress Delhi Unit Chief, who resigned from the post in January 2019, citing health reasons, has now refused to contest in the 2019 General Elections until and unless the party finalises an alliance with AAP. Maken lost to Meenakshi Lekhi in the Lok Sabha polls of 2014 from his traditional New Delhi seat. Sheila Dikshit, another prominent figure, ex-Chief Minister of Delhi and the new president of the Delhi Congress, has been very vocal about her opposition of AAP, Arvind Kejriwal and their brand of ‘dharna’ politics. The tussle is not going to do any good to the already sickened Congress, struggling to find an opening to reach a level of relevance in the politics of Delhi.
There has been bad blood between the two big names of Delhi’s Congress unit ever since Sheila Dikshit blamed Maken for not taking along other leaders of the party during the campaign for 2015 Delhi Assembly Elections, which eventually ended very poorly for the party. Maken, furious and hurt by the former CM’s comments, threatened to quit the party. In the CNN-IBN interview from 2015, which was the root cause of trouble between the two, Sheila Dikshit had cleared Rahul Gandhi of all his mistakes during the whole campaign and put the burden of the loss only on Maken.
It can’t be forgotten how the Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was pushing for an alliance with the Congress. However, in the past, Kejriwal once swore on his kids to never collaborate with the Congress in an election. But U-turns are commonplace in his style of politics.
The problem with the situation at hand for Congress is that the trade-off might prove to be very expensive. Both the leaders have their own zones of influence within the party ranks and choosing one from the two can lead to one of them detaching themselves from the party fold. Ajay Maken who has high expectations from this alliance, was once a staunch opponent of the same, when it was suggested that the Congress should tie up with AAP during his term as the Delhi Congress chief. To sum it up, it would be interesting to see how this unfolds and where it goes from here.