Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday claimed that the upcoming Delhi assembly elections will reveal the behind-the-scenes cooperation or “jugalbandi” between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). His statement came hours after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on him, accusing him of denying due representation to backward communities, Dalits, tribals, and minorities.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Kejriwal refrained from directly addressing Gandhi’s accusations, stating that his priority was saving the country, while Gandhi’s focus was on salvaging his party. “Today Rahul Gandhi came to Delhi. He abused me a lot. But I will not comment on his statements,” Kejriwal wrote. “His fight is to save Congress, my fight is to save the country,” he added.
The BJP quickly reacted to Kejriwal’s remarks, with the party’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya advising the AAP leader to focus on retaining his New Delhi seat in the upcoming elections. Quoting Kejriwal’s post, Malviya said, “Worry about the country later, save your New Delhi seat now.”
Kejriwal, in turn, took a swipe at both the BJP and the Congress, stating, “I said just one line about Rahul Gandhi and the reply is coming from the BJP. Perhaps, this Delhi election will expose the jugalbandi going on behind the scenes between the Congress and the BJP for years.”
On Monday, during his first public meeting for the Delhi assembly polls, Rahul Gandhi had targeted both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Kejriwal. Gandhi accused the AAP chief of adopting Modi’s tactics of “propaganda and false promises” despite the worsening issues of pollution, corruption, and inflation in the national capital.
Gandhi further promised that the Congress would conduct a caste survey in Delhi if it formed the government. He also pledged to remove the existing 50 per cent cap on reservations through legislative amendments in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha if the Congress came to power at the Centre.
“The Congress government under Sheila Dikshit’s leadership delivered tangible results in Delhi, which neither Kejriwal nor the BJP can match,” Gandhi said, emphasizing the achievements of three successive Congress-led governments in the capital.
The former Congress president also pressed Kejriwal to clarify his stance on the caste census and reiterated his party’s commitment to ensuring proportional representation through such surveys.
The assembly elections in Delhi are scheduled for February 5, with votes set to be counted on February 8. The AAP and the Congress are both part of the opposition INDIA bloc but are contesting the Delhi polls separately, unlike their alliance in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
