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Rahul, Kejriwal sprint towards point of no return with no-holds barred attacks ahead of Delhi polls

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New Delhi: With just days to go before the Delhi Assembly elections, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Tuesday launched an unprecedented attack on AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and his closest associate Manish Sisodia, accusing them of being the “architects” of the Delhi ‘liquor scam’.

Hours after Rahul’s remarks, Kejriwal hit back. “Modi ji jails people even in fake cases like the liquor scam. Why haven’t you and your family been arrested in an open and shut case like the National Herald,” he wrote on X.

Adding, “How did Robert Vadra get a clean chit from the BJP? It’s better if you don’t preach about fear and bravery. The country knows who’s a coward and who’s courageous.”

While Delhi unit of the Congress has been fiercely critical of the AAP leadership, the party’s high command, particularly the Gandhi family, had so far refrained from making political attacks on Kejriwal and Sisodia regarding the excise policy case, which led to the arrests of at least four of AAP’s top leaders—including Kejriwal and Sisodia—by central agencies.

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Rahul, Sonia Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended a rally of the INDIA bloc in March 2023 to protest the arrests of Kejriwal and Hemant Soren, executive president of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), in two separate cases. Rahul described Kejriwal’s arrest as yet another attempt by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ‘suppress dissent and destroy democracy’.

Also, despite the historical animosity between the two parties, the AAP and the Congress had fought the Lok Sabha elections together in Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat, Chandigarh, and Goa. But their relationship has only soured since. Tensions flared first after seat-sharing talks broke down ahead of the Haryana assembly polls, and more recently, the discord has intensified in the lead-up to the Delhi elections.

However, Rahul’s speech Tuesday at the Patparganj assembly constituency in East Delhi, represented by Sisodia in the previous two terms, marked an escalation in the Congress’s efforts to regain its foothold in Delhi—where it was in power from 1998 till 2013.

“We are witnessing a battle of ideologies,” he said. “On one hand, there is the BJP-RSS, which represents violence and hatred, and on the other, there is the Congress, which fights for constitutional values. And in the middle is Arvind Kejriwal, who says whatever comes to his mind,” added Rahul, who is the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

Referring to the AAP’s studied silence during the 2020 Delhi riots, among other issues, he said, “When he (Kejriwal) first came, he had a small car. He promised to bring in a new kind of politics. Remember, he even climbed an electric pole. He promised to change Delhi. But when the poor needed him the most, he was nowhere to be found. When Delhi was engulfed in violence, he was missing in action. He promised clean politics, and yet, the biggest liquor scam took place right here in Delhi.”

Apart from the alleged liquor scam, Rahul also brought up the controversy surrounding the new residence of the Delhi chief minister, which was built during Kejriwal’s tenure. He specifically used the term ‘sheesh mahal’ (glass palace), a phrase coined by the BJP to highlight the alleged opulence of the building, to drive home his point.

“And you must have seen the pictures of his house. Narendra Modi had thrown me out of my house. I handed over my keys and asked them to get going. Kejriwal lives in a mahal, in a sheesh mahal,” Rahul said.

In his first campaign speech in Delhi at Seelampur on 13 January, Rahul did attack Kejriwal, saying the AAP chief follows the same playbook as PM Modi in “spreading propaganda and lies,” but there was no mention of the excise policy case or the controversy over the CM’s residence. 

On Tuesday, Rahul also described Sisodia as an “architect of the liquor scam”.

“Previously, Manish Sisodia was the candidate here. He is the architect of the liquor scam along with Kejriwal. They did all the corruption. And then he fled from here out of fear,” Rahul said, referring to the AAP’s decision to field Sisodia, the former deputy chief minister of Delhi, from the Jangpura assembly constituency in the upcoming polls.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)


Also Read: Brand Kejriwal is under strain in Delhi, but it’s still thriving. What the loyal voter says


 



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