Congress Miffed Over Kejriwal Targeting Gandhis In National Herald Case

New Delhi: The Congress is miffed over AAP founder Arvind Kejriwal renewing attacks on the Gandhi family over the National Herald case and slammed the former Delhi chief minister for playing the BJP’s game again.

Right from the beginning, when the AAP came to power in Delhi in 2013, the grand old party has been accusing the rival of being the B team of the BJP. However, due to political compulsions ahead of the 2024 national elections, the Congress not only welcomed the AAP in the INDIA bloc but contested the Lok Sabha polls together as well.

Out of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, the AAP contested 4 and the Congress 3. However, the alliance failed to stop the BJP, which won all seven parliamentary seats in the national capital.

Besides Delhi, the two parties also had a seat-sharing arrangement in Haryana, where the AAP contested 1 Lok Sabha seat and the Congress contested 9 Lok Sabha seats, and in Gujarat, where the AAP contested 2 Lok Sabha seats and the Congress contested 24 seats. The Congress won 6 seats in Haryana and 1 seat in Gujarat, but the AAP could not win any seats in the two states.

Soon after the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress accused that the AAP had unilaterally announcing to go alone in the 2025 Delhi assembly elections. The AAP was defeated by the BJP in Delhi, but the Congress later claimed that its aggressive campaign had cost the AAP over a dozen seats in the national capital.

A few months later, the AAP won the Visavadar assembly by-poll in BJP-ruled Gujarat and the Ludhiana West assembly by-poll in Punjab and started claiming that it was the national alternative to the Congress. Soon after, as Kejriwal began to spend most of his time in saving the AAP government in Punjab, the party announced it was no more a part of the INDIA bloc.

The old rivalry between the Congress and the AAP was revived recently when Kejriwal brought the alleged National Herald money laundering case into public discourse to claim that there was a nexus between the BJP and the grand old party to target him. The former Delhi chief minister noted that the National Herald case was an open and shut case and that while the BJP’s central government had got him jailed in the alleged liquor scam, it had left the Gandhi family members untouched.

Both former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are accused in the National Herald case, which they have dubbed a fabricated and political vendetta of the BJP. Kejriwal also mentioned the regular attacks of the BJP on Robert Vadra, Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law, over the past decade and wondered why no action had been taken by the central government in the various cases of corruption against the private businessman.

According to Congress insiders, Kejriwal had forgotten that he had earlier levelled corruption charges against several national leaders, including the Gandhis, but had later apologised in court. Also, despite his targeting the Gandhis, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi had lent their weight behind Kejriwal’s wife, Sunita Kejriwal, who was managing the party during the period the former chief minister was in jail.

“Kejriwal is just trying to stay relevant in politics. That is the reason he is targeting the Congress leadership, which had backed him when he was in prison. This party has no ideology, and he is raising baseless issues. Sometimes they are the INDIA bloc and sometimes they are not. One should not waste too much time on them,” AICC functionary Manish Chatrath told ETV Bharat.

According to senior Punjab Congress leader Kuljit Nagra, Kejriwal was worried that the Congress was planning an aggressive campaign in Punjab ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.

“They have lost Delhi and are now worried over Punjab. But playing old tricks won’t help them now. He had in the past levelled charges against national leaders, but later apologized in court. Now he is targeting Congress again. Instead, he should strengthen the INDIA bloc, which is fighting against the BJP,” Nagra told ETV Bharat.

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