Senior Congress leader Ajay Maken on Wednesday said that the grand old party's decision to support the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2013 led to the Congress' decline in Delhi. Maken added that there is a need to rectify the repeated mistake of aligning with the AAP in the Lok Sabha elections 2024.
Maken's remarks came at a press conference while releasing a White Paper on the Black Deeds of both AAP government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government.
"I feel that today the plight of Delhi and that the Congress got weakened here is only because of the fact that we supported AAP for 40 days in 2013,” Maken, who is the president of Delhi Congress, said.
The veteran Congress leader further said had the grand old party not helped Kejriwal in forming the government in 2013, Delhi residents might not have faced the challenges they faced.
In 2013, Arvind Kejriwal scripted history by defeating popular CM Sheila Dikshit in her New Delhi assembly seat. Kejriwal won just 28 seats, slightly behind the BJP.
The Congress-AAP tie up lasted only for 49 days. In the 2015 assembly elections, the AAP won 67 of 70 seats and the BJP was reduced to just 3 seats. The Congress drew a blank in this assembly election.
Moving ahead, Maken criticised Arvind Kejriwal, saying his party came to power riding on the anti-corruption agitation and failed to set up Janlokpal in Punjab where the AAP is in government.
He furthermore went onto say: "If there is one word to describe former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal here then it would be 'Farziwal'."
The Delhi Congress chief alleged that money was spent on renovating the Chief Minister's official residence by the AAP and constructing the Central Vista by the Centre during the COVID-19 pandemic when common people were suffering.
He added the pension for elderly was stopped due to the fighting between the AAP government in Delhi and the Central government.
Maken also went onto call Kejriwal an "anti-national" who is in "ideological" support of the BJP on issues such as the Uniform Civil Code, abrogation of Article 370 and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
He also asked how can one rely on Kejriwal who is only driven by "personal ambition".