New Delhi: As a door-to-door campaign in a market in West Delhi winded down, excited Aam Aadmi Party workers held up an iPhone with the selfie camera on and chanted, “Kejriwal zindabad! Kejriwal zindabad!” Congress workers ran toward the camera and forced themselves into the frame: “Rahul Gandhi zindabad! Rahul Gandhi zindabad!” The workers laughed before dispersing.
It was an awkward moment.
But behind this seemingly healthy camaraderie an undercurrent of tension soars. One of the campaigners, a councilor of the Congress party, left the campaign midway because Congress’ Nyay Patra and Rahul Gandhi’s photo was missing from the campaign material brought by AAP workers on ground.
“Uff, what to do about these Congressis,” an AAP worker mutters under his breath.
And with barely four weeks before the national capital goes to polls, Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely resigned Sunday from his post over its alliance with the AAP.
Congress and AAP workers find themselves in a peculiar situation. For years, they’ve campaigned against each other in Delhi’s political arena. Now alliance partners, the parties have been brought together not by ideology or a cause, but by a common enemy: the Bharatiya Janata Party. While the partys’ top brass has shaken hands, there is still some bickering on the ground and the bonhomie is grudging and superficial at best. The solidarity hasn’t trickled down to workers campaigning on ground, who are finding it difficult to coordinate with each other. For now, both parties are campaigning in silos, with Congress workers knocking door to door with their Nyay Patra, and AAP workers running ‘jail ka jawaab vote se’ campaign wherever they have got the ticket to contest elections.
In South Delhi, AAP’s biggest challenger is not the BJP, but a Congress ward councilor. While in Chandni Chowk constituency, Congress workers don’t have hopes of getting any help from the AAP, which recently swept municipal polls in the area. Congress workers gossip about the inefficient work by ward councilors in the Chandni Chowk area.
“We go ask for votes, but people first complain of the filth in the area. The AAP is doing a rather bad job of keeping this municipality clean,” a Congress worker said on condition of anonymity.
The AAP-Congress seat sharing in Delhi as part of the INDIA coalition was announced in late February. Since then, both parties have suffered jolts in their campaign efforts, with the Congress alleging their bank accounts have been frozen, and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal put behind bars in ED’s Delhi liquor scam case. The parties could not reach a seat sharing agreement in Punjab. With less than a month to go when Delhi votes, seamless coordination in on-ground campaigns for the parties is sorely missing. The Aam Aadmi Party is contesting four out of seven Lok Sabha Seats of Delhi, while the remaining three have gone to congress.
The AAP rose from the ashes of the Congress’ decay in Delhi. Kejriwal rode the wave of Sheila Dixit’s anti-incumbency to rise to power.
Their social bases overlap, and they lack ideological congruence. Full fruits of the alliance translating on ground is difficult, especially when both parties are each others’ arch rivals in Delhi, said Rahul Verma with Centre for Policy Research. “Congress has been completely squeezed in Delhi, and only hardcore party workers are left today. They see AAP as their biggest nemesis. The AAP wants the Congress to also campaign on Kejriwal’s arrest, which the Congress is not very willing to do,” he told ThePrint.
While both parties are busy forming ‘coordination committees’ to work in tandem with each other, the leaders ThePrint spoke to failed to provide any information on how the alliance is going to build a cohesive campaign on ground. While door-to-door campaigns of the AAP are in full swing, Congress is slowly waking up.
AAP workers such as Himanshu Pahuja, president of Hari Nagar legislative constituency, said there’s nothing wrong with this strategy. “AAP is campaigning wherever a ticket has been given to our party’s leader and vice versa. That’s the best utilisation of resources, nothing wrong with that. We also have the support of the Congress whenever we need it,” he said while campaigning for Mahabal Misra, a seasoned leader who jumped ship from Congress to AAP in 2022.
Misra’s old party friends now tease AAP workers on the campaign. “Congress is everyone’s baap (father) after all. AAP took birth from Congress only. All these parties… they should be thankful to us,” said jolly Diljeet Kalsi, block president of Fateh Nagar for Congress said.
This alliance has not been able to rattle the BJP, which boasts of landslide margins in its 2019 clean sweep of Delhi. “Ye majbooti nahi, majboori ki alliance hai (it’s an alliance of circumstances),” said Ajay Sherawat, Delhi BJP’s spokesperson. “It is sad for any party that their leader is jailed. So many AAP workers came on ground to protest Kejriwal’s arrest. Did you see the same by Congress workers? They’ll lose all seven seats.”
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Dilemma on ground
A group of 10 AAP workers surveyed the area of Aaya Nagar on a Sunday evening. Their target was to cover 100-150 houses in the colony. They went from house-to-house putting up stickers of Kejriwal on windows and gates. Some miffed voters tore the stickers apart, others hugged the campaigners and expressed distress over Kejriwal’s arrest.
“The chief minister did so much for you. Got this road repaired and put up lights and CCTV in the area. It’s time you do something for him, vote for jhadoo!” Anita Pandey, the party’s Chhatarpur constituency head told women of the area.
“People are really happy with Kejriwal ji,” she beamed. Aaya Nagar is at the fag end of Delhi towards Gurugram border. And the AAP workers are keen to woo the 40,000-strong vote bank living in the gullies of this colony.
The AAP has fielded two-time legislator from Tuglakabad Sahiram Pehelwan. He takes on Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, leader of opposition in Delhi assembly. Ramesh Bidhuri, two time incumbent, won the 2019 Lok Sabha election from South Delhi with an impressive 56 per cent vote share, and AAP’s Raghav Chadha was a distant second with 26 per cent vote share.
Congress and AAP candidates polled at 4.84 lakh votes in 2019, nearly two lakh votes short of the BJP candidate. Winning the South Delhi constituency then is an uphill task for Pehelwan. More so when the cohesion between workers is missing.
The biggest thorn on Kumar and Pandey’s side is Congress counsellor from this ward Shital Choudhry, who they say has been campaigning against them. “Since Chowdhry is a Gurjar, he has decided to campaign for Bidhuri,” Kumar said. “Rahul (Gandhi) ji should do something!” Pandey cried.
The party workers also complained about the lack of work that Shital Choudhry has done on ground. Allegations of corruption are thrown around. WhatsApp videos of Choudhry’s husband Ved Pal, ex-councillor, in the same meeting as Bidhuri are circulated on party groups. The workers in the campaign complain about Congress’ inability to keep its officials in check. In one of the purported videos, AAP workers claimed it is Ved Pal who is praising Bidhuri and urging people to vote for him.
“I have been campaigning in Karnataka for the Congress and have not played any role so far in the campaign efforts in Delhi. I am a worker of the INDIA alliance. The videos are fake, nowadays anyone can use AI to generate a video,” said Ved Pal Choudhary, emphasising it is his wife who the current councillor and not him.
“So many people leave them on a regular basis. They can’t even control their workers,” an AAP worker snapped.
As they wrapped up the campaign in Aaya Nagar, they sat with families in the area and promised to complete essential work that the Congress councilor hasn’t “even started”. “The alliance is only on the level of big leaders. Workers have received no instructions to work together yet,” said Kumar, winding down the day by serving Frooti, water and snacks to all karyakartas of the party.
Subhash Chopra, three-time MLA, is serving as the president of Congress’ Coordination committee. But the committee is yet to begin coordination with AAP. “They (AAP) are also making a committee, and we’ll make teams till block level so both parties work together. We’ll contest the elections as INDIA alliance,” he told ThePrint over phone.
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Same same but different
Roaming in the congested streets of Daryaganj, Shafi Dehlvi, a seasoned politician and member of Delhi government’s minority commission, emphasised that the AAP would see no benefit in helping the Congress win elections. The fear in AAP MLAs and ward councillors would be losing their vote bank to each other.
“Elections are war,” said Dehlvi, adding that “circumstances need to be adapted to.”
But Dehlvi doesn’t think either Congress or the AAP have made peace with the fact that they need to be on each other’s side.
Congress workers agreed. “We just campaigned against AAP candidates in the MCD elections. We made derogatory remarks about their personal lives, family lives, how will we look if we roam around hand in hand with them now? What will our voters think?” asked a young Congress campaigner.
While the AAP campaign is centred on Kejriwal, Congress workers go house to house informing people of the Nyay guarantees promised by their party. They also upload names on an application of people who want to register to get a guarantee. The campaign is easygoing, and it doesn’t need much convincing on the Congress’ part. They are surveying a Muslim-dominated area with a familiar vote bank.
Kejriwal’s arrest is mentioned in passing by them, whenever the campaigners want to emphasise the ‘autocracy’ of Modi government.
There is fear among the Congress campaigners that Delhi Deputy Mayor Aaley Mohammad Iqbal, of the AAP, might do more damage than good to their campaign. “A congress victory won’t benefit them (AAP). We fear they’d put up dummy candidates when nomination papers are filed to cut our vote,” another campaigner said.
The campaigners said that AAP’s “incompetence” is also going against their favour. “How can we use AAP’s name for votes anyway? They haven’t worked properly in the area. There is garbage everywhere. Who will vote for us in their name?” a Congress campaigner said, requesting anonymity.
Dehlvi said the upcoming assembly elections in Delhi also prevents AAP workers from enthusiastically working for the Congress. “Congress’ victory in the Lok Sabha would mean the party would contest assembly elections with more zest. And that would hurt the AAP candidate in the future. So it is not in their personal interest to work for Congress. So you’ll see the party workers will go on stage with leaders, smile, shake hands, but they won’t work together when it comes to actual campaigning,” he said.
This chatter among party workers fell silent when coordinators of the All India Congress Committee entered the scene. From casual conversation, workers shifted to a stiff demeanour with the arrival of the coordinator, who went on to occupy the centre of the room. He laid rest to any murmurs of discord.
“AAP and Congress are one and together, that is all we have to say,” the coordinator, Sibtain Shah, said, and the workers nodded in agreement.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)