Comments
The Congress is groping in dark to find a strategy to counter the growth of Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab, making deep inroads to the party’s traditional pockets. Though a section of the leaders believes that it can settle the organisational disputes by projecting Amarinder Singh as the leader, another group believes that lack of clear strategy to counter AAP is cracking the base of the party in Punjab.
The party had recently managed to rope in Manpreet Badal and get his party, People’s Party of Punjab, merged with the Congress in an attempt get pro-people image. Talks are also on with the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Left parties for a possible alliance in the State. “Nothing is concrete yet. Election is months away. Neither the BSP, nor the Left parties have given us any commitment. The high command will take a final decision on the alliances,” a senior leader said. He, however, added that it is unlikely that the BSP or the Left parties will be ready for an alliance. “We will have to revive our bases,” he added.
He, however, added that the party will have to step up attack against the AAP to get its voters back. The AAP had won four Lok Sabha seats from the State in the 2014 elections. “It is a Herculean task at the moment. The AAP is building its base using the Dalit voters, who are traditionally our supporters,” the leader added.
Of late, the party has started attacking the AAP directly. “AAP should understand if they want to come here they can do so as a democratic party but not as anarchists crying Inquilab zindabad and not try to demolish the whole structure of this country particularly in Punjab,” Amarinder Singh said in Chandigarh recently.
In Delhi too, the Congress is trying to attack the AAP citing the strikes of sanitation workers in Municipal Corporation of Delhi. The party is also trying to create an impression that the AAP also has corrupt elements in it. Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken released a taped conversation between an MCD official and a complainant against Environment Minister in Arvind Kejriwal’s Cabinet, Imran Hussain. Maken alleged that the Minister demanded bribe from the complainant for a land allotment in National Capital Region. Maken said Kejriwal’s claims of a corruption-free administration is false. “We want a CBI probe into the issue. We will send the audio file to Kejriwal and to the CBI,” Maken said.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.