Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 16: Ahead of the united opposition front INDIA alliance meeting in Mumbai later this month, the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party had a face-off on Wednesday over the poll alliance in Delhi.
The Congress party held a key meeting in Delhi on Wednesday to discuss the strategy for the national election next year. The party has kept the door open for alliances, though there is much speculation over a possible tie-up between the Congress and the AAP, particularly in the light of the situation in Delhi where the 15 years uninterrupted Congress rule was suddenly wiped out by the chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP.
“The meeting lasted for four hours; 40 leaders attended and gave their opinion. The talks focused on strengthening the Congress in Delhi,” Congress leader Alka Lamba said after attending the meeting chaired by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and MP Rahul Gandhi.
“We have been given orders to contest on all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi,” Lamba claimed. Delhi Congress chief Anil Chaudhary and party leader Ajay Maken, who attended the meeting, highlighted possible issues linked to an alliance with the AAP.
The APP immediately reacted to the claim stating that if the Congress has decided to have no truck with the AAP in Delhi, there was no need for the party to attend the third round of INDIA meeting in Mumbai. AAP chief national spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar, said, “If Congress has already decided to not form an alliance with us, then it is of no use for us to attend the next ‘INDIA’ alliance meeting. Our top leadership will decide whether or not we’ll attend the next meeting.” Delhi minister Saurabh Bhardwaj said, “Our central leadership will decide this…Our political affairs committee and INDIA parties will sit together and discuss this (poll alliance).”
AAP leader Somnath Bharti said, “Everyone should realise that we should keep our ambitions aside and think about the country and Constitution.”
A section of the Delhi Congress is still sour over how the AAP suddenly came in the scene and decimated the Congress in the 2015 Delhi election. The AAP won 67 out of the 70 seats and the BJP took 3 seats. The Congress drew a blank then, which ended the party’s 15-year rule of Delhi under former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
Similarly, the Punjab Congress leaders are also unhappy with the AAP for snatching the state from its hands when they should have united fought against the BJP. The Delhi and the Punjab leaders in the Congress have always opposed joining hands with the AAP holding it to be even a greater enemy than the BJP.
The Congress and AAP had been at loggerheads recently over the Centre’s Delhi Services Bill. The AAP had demanded Congress to clear its stand on the ordinance as a condition to attend the second meeting of the I.N.D.I.A alliance held a Bengaluru last month. Later, the Congress backed AAP over the services bill in parliament, but could not stop the bill from being passed and get the presidential ascent to become a law because of the support the BJP could muster from some other regional parties including the BJD and the YSRCP.
“When all the parties of the INDIA bloc sit and discuss seat-sharing, the national leadership of all the parties will come to an agreement. Till then nothing is concrete. All this is very far ahead,” Bhardwaj said.
Unaware about the tussle between his party’s Delhi leaders and the AAP, Kharge said they held the meeting to work out how best to strengthen the Congress in the national capital. “We had made Delhi prosperous and happy, our struggle for the people of Delhi continues even further,” Kharge said after the meeting. All the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi are currently held by the BJP.
Meanwhile, the Congress and the BJP also crossed swords over officially changing over the name of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) the decision for which was taken in June and only implemented with effect from August 16.
While the Congress has said the objective behind renaming the iconic structure is to distort the legacy of the country’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the BJP has hit back with its dynasty charge.
The NMML, located on Teen Murti Marg in central Delhi, has been officially renamed as Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library Society. The decision to rename it was taken in June. Known as Flagstaff House during the British Raj, this building was earlier used as the residence of the Commander-in-chief of British forces. After Independence, it became the official residence of Prime Minister Nehru. Following his death, it was converted to a library and museum.
When the Narendra Modi government came to power, a Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya was set up on the premises to chronicle achievements of all the Prime Ministers, starting from Jawaharlal Nehru to Prime Minister Modi. This museum was inaugurated last year.
On Wednesday morning, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “From today, an iconic institution gets a new name. The world renowned Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) becomes PMML-Prime Ministers’ Memorial Museum and Library.”
Ramesh said Prime Minister Modi was insecure about Jawaharlal Nehru. “He has had a single point agenda of denying, distorting, defaming and destroying Nehru and the Nehruvian legacy. He has erased N and put P instead. That P is really for pettiness and peeve.”
“But he can never take away Nehru’s gigantic contributions in the freedom movement and his towering achievements in building the democratic, secular, scientific and liberal foundations of the Indian nation-state, all of which are now under assault by Modi and his drumbeaters,” he added.
The Congress leader said Nehru’s “legacy will live on for the world to see and he will continue to inspire generations to come.” Ramesh’s remarks were backed by leaders of the Congress and other Opposition parties united against the INDIA bloc to take on the BJP in the general election next year.
In a sharp response, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said in a video message that for Ramesh, “P means only Parivar (family) and not people” – a jab at the Gandhi family. “When a museum, a library which would showcase the achievements of all the Prime Ministers of this country, from the first Prime Minister to the current Prime Minister, from Lal Bahadur Shashtri to PV Narasimha Rao to HD Deve Gowda to Inder Kumar Gujral — all of them have made this country great –, the Congress party is opposing and saying it should be named after only one Prime Minister from one family,” he said. Poonawalla asked if Nehru’s legacy was so weak that “if one institution is named after all Prime Ministers, his legacy will be demolished”. “This shows their mindset of putting Parivar above people,” he said.
