Opposition leaders may be seen together on one stage during rally.
In the proposed Sunday rally at Delhi’s Ramleela Maidan against the arrest of AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, veteran opposition leaders can be seen together on the stage after a decade. However the biggest question is whether this unity and appearance of leaders together at the rally will be seen in other states too. There is no answer. Then another question arises, what benefit will Congress get from joining AAP’s proposed rally in Delhi? Again, no answer.
So, is Congress hoping that an ‘Anna-like’ movement against the Centre can stop Narendra Modi’s government from coming to power for the third time? Congress forgot that Anna Hazare did not run any opposition movement for power. Kejriwal led an opposition movement against Congress and then got involved in corruption allegations and ended up in jail. Even now, the ongoing agitation is also happening just to stay in power. Kejriwal, who taught Congress and this opposition a lesson in ethics in 2012-2013, has now forgotten everything. Kejriwal had labelled Congress and this opposition as corrupt and thieves and led a movement to gain power.
Congress senior leader Sanjay Nirupam counted the names of all those leaders from Lal Bahadur Shastri to many others who resigned when allegations were made against them. He also expressed the same expectation from Kejriwal that he should resign on moral grounds, but he did not.
During the UPA government led by Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, many ministers, like Pawan Bansal, resigned from their ministerial positions after allegations of corruption.
Not only that, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren also resigned from the chief minister’s post right before his arrest. RJD leader Lalu Yadav, whom Sonia Gandhi respects the most, also resigned from his post before going to jail and handed over the chief minister’s position to his wife Rabri Devi, thus setting a new tradition. However, he later paid the price for it. He has been out of power for 15 years.
Perhaps in the coming days, Kejriwal might also appoint his wife as the chief minister and hand over the party’s command to her. The possibility seems real. Then what will Congress do? When the Aam Aadmi Party was not giving a share in Punjab, why would it give one in Delhi? Assembly elections are due in Delhi after 9 months. It is believed that Kejriwal’s party won’t even give a single seat to Congress in the coming Assembly elections. This means that Congress’s situation in Delhi will be like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra, where small regional parties ignore Congress. Perhaps the same will happen in Delhi too, as it has already happened with Congress by AAP in Punjab.
Now, the second thing is that it doesn’t seem like the atmosphere in the Hindi belt states will change due to this rally in Delhi. It means it is surprising why Congress is supporting Arvind Kejriwal. AAP cannot get votes for Congress in any Hindi-speaking state. In states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, AAP is not in power. Currently, Besides Delhi AAP is in power only in Punjab, where AAP is actively contesting against Congress, levelling allegations of corruption. Meanwhile, Left parties are posing a challenge to Congress in Kerala, where the latter is out of power.
In Bihar, RJD has marginalised Congress to the extent that it struggles to assert itself. Despite their alliance, leaders like Lalu Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav failed to secure votes outside Bihar, leading Congress to face repercussions for aligning with them in other states.
Moreover, in Maharashtra, leaders such as Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar appear to be sidelining Congress, potentially resulting in friendly competition on certain seats. The situation in Uttar Pradesh remains critical and is widely acknowledged where Congress has been given only 17 of total 80 Lok Sabha seats by SP.