💙Caught between ambition to challenge the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections and maintaining ties within the Opposition's INDIA alliance, the Congress party finds itself at a crossroads in the national capital.
🀅The grand old party exposed its internal rifts on Sunday after it abruptly postponed a scheduled presser that had the potential to escalate its ongoing attack on AAP convenor and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. "The postponement of the media briefing highlighted the party's uneasy balancing act," argue political watchers.
Congress National Treasurer Ajay Maken, a noted leader in Delhi, had to hold the press conference which aimed to elaborate his claims that Kejriwal was "anti-national". He had made the controversial statement in late December. Congress 🥃spokesperson Abhay Dubey attributed the postponement to the absence of “some documents". The decision, for many, signalled a shift in the party's approach and reflected a deeper divide within Congress.
Party sources confirmed that Congress' Delhi wing was keen to continue pressing its case against AAP, but the national leadership, especially Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge 🔴and other senior leaders such as Rahul Gandhi, intervened to soften the rhetoric.
🅷 “We will contest the Delhi election with full aggression, but we cannot descend into the BJP’s vocabulary of calling people ‘anti-national’. That is their domain, not ours,” said a senior leader, who also underscored the party's discomfort with the language being used by Maken and others in Delhi.
꧂The move to downplay the confrontation with Kejriwal is also linked to the larger picture of Opposition unity. AAP responded strongly to Maken’s remarks in late December and warned Congress that it would walk out of the INDIA bloc if no action was taken against the national treasurer. This escalation comes when the capital is set to witness a high-stakes battle in February.
♈However, this is not the first time the Congress has been caught between local and national priorities in Delhi. Despite efforts from the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) to expose AAP’s governance through a foot march last year, the national leadership has repeatedly pulled back from endorsing these moves.
𒀰Rahul Gandhi, despite being present in Delhi during key events, did not participate in the march or in any public confrontation with the incumbent party. This signals a reluctance to fully engage in what some party insiders see as a "futile battle" against a rising political force in the capital.
ꦐThe internal tensions also reflect a fundamental question the Congress is facing - Can it afford to alienate a key partner like AAP in the national Opposition, or should it focus on recapturing its lost political ground in Delhi, where the AAP has all but sidelined it?
🍒While some Congress leaders like Maken view the aggressive stance as necessary to regain the party's relevance in the city, others fear that it may harm the broader political unity.
🍌This division is made even more difficult by Kejriwal's own criticisms of Congress. The former Delhi CM has accused the party of collaborating with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi. "If there is any such alliance, they should make it public," he said recently, fuelling the sense of a deepening rivalry.
🍨In some ways, the conflict over Kejriwal has come to represent the larger crisis within the Congress as it tries to juggle its political ambitions in Delhi and its role within the larger Opposition alliance in the Centre.
𝓰The upcoming elections in Delhi are seen as an important battle not just for Congress's local survival, but also for its future in the national Opposition - How the party handles its internal divides, and whether it can avoid alienating either AAP or its own core supporters, will determine its political future.
