When news of the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by the Enforcement Directorate broke on Thursday night, among the first leaders to reach his Civil Lines residence was Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit, son of former chief minister Sheila Dikshit. Delhi Congress President Arvinder Singh Lovely also reached, accompanied by party workers.
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The occasion marked a full circle for the largely bitter relationship between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, the two parties having only recently found common ground in their shared aim to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Sheila Dikshit had faced defeat at the hands of Kejriwal, who had then just made a transition from an anti-corruption crusader to a politician, in the assembly elections in Delhi in 2013. The Congress was defeated after having been in power for three consecutive terms. Kejriwal, the hero of a massively impactful India Against Corruption movement, had emerged as Dikshit’s nemesis. His allegations of corruption against the Dikshit regime had hit the target.
For her son, Sandeep, a prominent leader of Delhi Congress, to be among the first leaders to come forth to express solidarity with Kejriwal upon his arrest, is ironic and at the same time shows how badly the two parties need each other at this juncture.
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Also present outside Kejriwal's residence in an expression of support to him was Lovely, who was a minister in the Dikshit government and had lost the election in 2013. Lovely is among the local Congress leaders who have seen the heydays of the party in the politics of Delhi. After 2013, the Congress has been unable to make a comeback in the national capital and at present it has no MLA in the state assembly. The AAP has been a direct beneficiary of the decline of the Congress in Delhi, usurping its vote bank of slum dwellers, migrant workers and the minorities.
At the national level, too, for Congress leaders to express solidarity with Kejriwal on his arrest for alleged corruption is a huge change of stance and also a big irony. A major reason for the Congress’s defeat in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 is believed to be the huge damage that the IAC movement did to the image of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
The Congress and the AAP have so far been bitter political opponents. The two parties had explored the possibility of an alliance in Delhi for the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, too. However, at that time, a large majority of the local Congress leadership was against the tie-up, not willing to forget the damage done by Kejriwal and his party to its electoral standing in the national capital. Even with regard to the allegations of corruption against Kejriwal and his party colleagues in the excise policy for Delhi, local Congress leaders had attacked them and even held protests on the issue.
