Delhi elections: 'Onus of AAP win not on us', says Cong as BJP leads polls

It is not the Congress' duty to ensure the Aam Aadmi Party’s victory, party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate told NDTV on Saturday (February 8) morning as the vote counting for the Delhi Assembly election showed an early BJP lead. "The onus of making the AAP win is not on the Congress... and Delhi is a place where we have been in the government for 15 years," she added.

"Our responsibility is not making the AAP win," Shrinate reiterated, adding, "Our responsibility is mounting a spirited campaign and contesting this election (or any other) as strongly as we can."

She also pointed to the AAP’s electoral forays into other states, saying, "Arvind Kejriwal went to Goa, Haryana, Gujarat, Uttarakhand... (to contest elections there)... and, in Goa and Uttarakhand, the vote-share difference between us and the BJP was exactly what the AAP got," implying that the saffron party could have been defeated otherwise.

In Goa, the BJP secured 40.3 per cent of the votes, while the Congress and AAP received 13.5 per cent and 12.8 per cent, respectively. In Uttarakhand, the BJP obtained 44.3 per cent, the Congress 37.9 per cent, and the AAP 4.82 per cent.

Shrinate’s pointed remarks come amid criticism of the INDIA bloc, which was formed to unite the opposition against the Bharatiya Janata Party. However, since its inception in June 2023, the alliance has struggled to challenge the BJP effectively, with the saffron party or its allies securing victories in most of the 13 state elections held since then.

The bloc’s challenges were further exacerbated by significant defeats in Haryana and Maharashtra last year, amid speculation of discord between the Congress and its allies -- Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, and the AAP.

INDIA bloc: Internal discord led to poll loss?

This internal discord became evident in the run-up to the Delhi election, with senior leaders from both sides -- Rahul Gandhi from the Congress and Arvind Kejriwal from the AAP -- exchanging barbs.

Gandhi criticised Kejriwal and the AAP over various issues, including allegations that the BJP-led Haryana government had contaminated the Yamuna water supply to Delhi. He also attacked the party regarding the alleged liquor policy scandal.

The AAP retaliated by claiming the BJP and the Congress were colluding to undermine the ‘people’s government’.

With the BJP taking an early lead in the election, tensions within the alliance resurfaced. Defending her party, Shrinate insisted that the Congress could not be blamed for another party’s poor electoral performance. She asserted that Kejriwal, or any other ally, would be held accountable for governance failures just as the BJP would.

"When and where you need to be called out, you will. This attempt of the AAP and political analysts at large, or even by allies, to say 'don't fight amongst yourselves'... all of us assess our political bastions and fight the battles we need to fight," she remarked.

Her statement gained further significance after another INDIA bloc leader, Jammu and Kashmir’s former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, took to social media to criticise the alliance saying "Aur lado aapas mein!!!" (keep fighting among yourselves).