The letter “K” distinguishes two phonetically similar words but significantly different in the English language: block (a combination of parts that work towards a common goal) and block (to obstruct). The “K” of Arvind Kejriwal has become the reason why Rahul Gandhi’s allies in the Indian block are blocking the ambitions of the Congress in the Delhi elections. The “common intention” behind the block of India now seems to extend beyond anti-bjpism, the initial reason for its formation, in the opposition against Congress itself.
The AAM AADMI (AAP) party has clearly become the favorite of the Indian block. The Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Nationalist Party of Congress (led by Sharad Pawar), Shiv Sena (UDDHAV BALASAHEB THACKERAY) and even the rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Lalu Prasad Yadav once imagined Rahul Gandhi as the ‘Dulha‘(boyfriend) in block’Baraat‘(Wedding procession): Everyone has pointed out their preference for AAP on Congress.
A withered group
With its formidable strength of 99 seats in the Lok Sabha, Congress can have the satisfaction of seeing Rahul Gandhi as the opposition leader (LOP). But in reality, the allies of the India block seem to favor the AAP, which has only three Lok Sabha seats. Therefore, Rahul Gandhi as LOP remembers the latest Mogoles emperors: regulators without an empire.
Trinamool has deployed his deputy of Asansol, Slatrunghan Sinha, to campaign for the AAP. Poorvanchali voters, with roots in Bihar and the east of Uttar Pradesh, form a large voting bank in the national capital. In addition to Sinha, Trinamool is likely to present his deputy of Durgapur, Kirti Azad, to support the Arvind Kejriwal party. Both Sinha and Azad were parliamentarians of Congress in the past. Akhilesh Yadav can also deploy some parliamentarians of the Samajwadi party in the next few days.
In contrast, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) are perhaps the only parts in the India block that have not actively opposed to Congress. The left matches, which maintain a faint connection with the block, have presented candidates in six of the 70 seats.
Rahul Gandhi has been included in a list of eleven politicians ‘corrupt’ by Kejriwal. A AAP poster with the motto “Kejriwal Ki Imandari Saarey Beimaan“(Kejriwal’s honesty will mean problems for corrupt) shows Rahul Gandhi with others.
Why Rahul has been soft towards AAP
Congress has filed a complaint with the electoral commission regarding the poster. While the party leaders have attacked Kejriwal so that Rahul Gandhi has taken a softer position: he has refrained from directly addressing the accusations of corruption against the AAP. However, he compared Kejriwal with Modi in terms of “propaganda and false promises.”
Since the first meeting of the India block in Patna, the AAP has successfully intimidated Congress, once the objective of the Founders of the AAP during the Indian movement against corruption. The Congress was forced to oppose the Delhi Services Law Project in Parliament, and the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee expressed its objections to the legislation. The last appearance of Dr. Manmohan Singh in the Parliament, in a wheelchair, was driven by the three -lines of the Congress in support of the peculiar posture of the AAP, which was finally denied by the ruling strategists of the NDA.
The leaders of the Delhi Congress were the first to raise the accusations around the special tax policy of liquors, which led to the arrests of Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia. Rahul Gandhi has maintained a relatively soft position towards the AAP, and the president of the Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge, has adopted a similar position, for the frustration of many workers of Congress in Delhi. The leader of the AAP in Rajya Sabha, Sanjay Singh, has been the intermediary through which Gandhi and Kharge maintained the dialogue with the AAP until the Delhi elections began. However, Delhi’s local leadership finally frustrated the AAP’s attempt to treat Congress as his team ‘B’.
Mine in Delhi
The almost absence of Rahul Gandhi of Delhi’s campaign has been attributed to “bad health.” The sources within the Delhi Congress reveal that the only occasion in which Rahul Gandhi discussed the survey strategy with them was during a zoom call, in which he was abrupt. Expressing its disgust with the functioning of the local unit, the call ended abruptly. Priyanka Vadra, who was also in Zoom’s call, then informed the participants that Rahul Gandhi was upset with them.
Interestingly, while Rahul Gandhi canceled his manifestations in Delhi due to poor health, neither Priyanka Vadra nor Mallikarjun Kharge intervened in his name during this crucial election season, when every day is beautiful. Instead of focusing on Delhi’s campaign, the leadership of Congress traveled to Mhow in Madhya Pradesh on January 27 to celebrate a demonstration in honor of Dr. Br Ambedkar, who came from the region. The songs of the rally, Jai Bapu, Jai Bhim, Jai Samvidhan, were destined to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and Br Ambedkar and continue the campaign to safeguard the constitution of India. (Ambedkar was never a member of Congress. In 1936, he founded the Independent Labor Party and challenged against Congress in the 1937 elections. Later, he joined the Central Assembly, with the opposition of the Congress, but backed by the Federation Castes scheduled scheduled Post.
However, in the manifestation of Mhow, Mallikarjun Kharge criticized the Interior Minister, Amit Shah for taking a dip in the Ganges in the Mahakumbh that day (Kharge, like Ambedkar, has embraced Buddhism). His speech did not address any of the three songs in the rally.
An alienated leader?
Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi continued his diatribe against the Adani-Embani commercial empires. He launched an attack against the media, claiming that the media of India were oblivious to the facts in the field and only reported on ‘Adani-Embani weddings’. Rahul Gandhi’s fixation in Adani-Embani’s narrative does not resonate either within the Congress or among the allies of the Indian block.
Rahul Gandhi’s soliloquy, which has already distanced him from the allies, is now beginning to move him away from Congress workers. The current choice in Delhi is a battle to make or die for many party workers who fight for their survival. In the last elections of the Assembly, Congress surveyed only 4% of votes. If the match faces another defeat, then, unlike the last Mogoles whose empire was extended from ‘Delhi to Palam’, Rahul Gandhi will be sitting in the newly built Indira Bhavan in Kotla Road, without a functional party organization that is worth the Pena in Delhi.
In 1969 and 1978, when Indira Gandhi divided Congress to emerge Supreme, Delhi’s party provided the spine. Without the configuration of the Delhi party and rejected by its regional allies, Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, faces isolation and oblivion.
(Shubhabrata Bhattacharya is a retired editor and a public affairs commentator))
Discharge of responsibility: These are the author’s personal opinions