Congress drubbing brings Maken-Sheila fissures to the fore

The Congress drubbing saw its Delhi unit Chief Ajay Maken resigning from his post owning moral responsibility for the party's defeat while veteran party leader and former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit put the onus of defeat squarely on local leaders.

Congress was looking at a possible revival in Delhi where it ruled for 15 years till 2013 but failed to win a single seat in the 2015 Assembly elections or the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Ajay Maken, who had represented the New Delhi Parliamentary constituency for two consecutive terms and lost the Lok Sabha polls in 2014, would return to Delhi state politics after a long hiatus before the 2015 Delhi Assembly Polls.

The civic bodies are mainly responsible for the city's cleanliness, hygiene, primary health and education and prevention of vector-borne diseases. The three corporations had a combined budget of nearly Rs 7,000 crore in the last fiscal.

The MCD polls are local in nature but the win is the latest in a series of BJP election victories credited largely to Prime Minister Modi. The win has also boosted the BJP's morale ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and may act as a dampener to the Opposition parties' efforts to stop the Modi-Amit Shah electoral juggernaut.

The party performed poorly in Delhi where the BJP staged a stupendous victory. Congress' in-Charge of Delhi Affairs P C Chacko too resigned from his post, owning moral responsibility for the party's dismal show in the MCD polls. He sent his resignation to party President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi.

He said that the party should introspect and ascertain the reasons for its defeat in Delhi and redefine its future strategy.

In the wake of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) poll results, former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit blamed the party's lacklustre 'campaigning' for its defeat.

"The party should have carried out a more aggressive election campaign, I did not do any campaigning because no one asked me to," she said, adding She also spoke of the EVM row that has been going on for some days now.

"The Election Commission and the government should solve the problem but whoever loses blames the EVM and whoever wins says that these are fine," the former CM said.

Dikshit, however, expressed confidence in the party and said, "The Congress is going through a bad phase. The BJP also did for a long time. We too will come back. The Congress' soul resides in India, the people will understand."

Looking forward to snatching away the leadership of the DPCC from current chief Ajay Maken after the party's poor performance in the MCD polls, Dikshit hinted that the party could have done better if he did not lead the team.

This comment by the former Delhi CM who was once the head of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee comes days after she blamed Maken for a number of Congress leaders leaving the party over the past month. During the height of campaigning, three time MLA Amrish Gautam, three-time minister in the Sheila Dikshit Cabinet Arvinder Singh Lovely and Women's Wing Chief Barkha Singh Shukla all joined BJP.

Dikshit added, "The approach which a PCC head should have, of taking everybody together, is not there. The primary reason behind people quitting the party is their being ignored, not listened to. So out of frustration, they are doing so. There is some problem with the prevailing system in the PCC. There is an urgent need to amend it."

Underlining her point, she added, "Yes of course. That is the reason (Ajay Maken's style of leadership). What else can be the reason? People worked with me for 15 years when Congress was in power. Did you hear any such news then of people leaving the party?"