Congress is helping BJP, says Arvind Kejriwal after Sheila Dikshit rules out alliance

India वोट Kar | March 5, 2019

Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal attacked the Congress after it formally decided not to ally with AAP in Delhi. In a tweet posted minutes after Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit called it a unanimous decision of the state unit, accepted by party president Rahul Gandhi, Kejriwal said the Congress was “helping the BJP”.

Kejriwal’s charge

In his tweet, Kejriwal said that when the whole country wanted to defeat the Modi-Shah duo, the Congress was helping the BJP by splitting the anti-BJP vote. He referred to rumours of a secret understanding between the two parties and said Delhi was ready to fight what he called a Congress-BJP alliance, predicting that voters would defeat it.

Senior AAP leader Gopal Rai told a press conference soon afterwards that the Congress was focused on helping the BJP. He said the Congress put party above country, and alleged that just as the BJP had helped the Congress defeat AAP in Punjab, the Congress was now doing the same in Delhi.

Background

AAP, which had already named candidates for six of Delhi’s seven seats, had signalled that it was open to talks, sources said, and had kept seat-sharing options ready for different scenarios. In Delhi it was prepared to give the Congress two seats. Kejriwal had earlier said the Congress was unwilling to ally and that he was tired of approaching it.

Rahul Gandhi’s meeting with the state leaders followed fresh pressure from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and was part of a wider rethink of opposition strategy after the Pulwama terror attack and India’s air strikes on a Jaish-e-Mohammed camp at Balakot in Pakistan.