New DelhiSeptember 3, 2025 10:00 AM IST
First published on: Sep 3, 2025 at 10:00 AM IST
THE uneasy ties between the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has pulled out of the INDIA bloc, took another hit Monday.
In an interview, Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav said that the party had contested this year’s Delhi Assembly polls “only to defeat the AAP, even if the move indirectly benefited the BJP”. “It is necessary to defeat Kejriwal and (former Delhi deputy CM) Manish Sisodia to defeat the AAP… We have somewhat succeeded in doing that,” he told YouTuber Aadesh Rawal.
Incidentally, before being appointed as the Delhi Congress chief, Yadav had served as the party’s in-charge in Punjab.
Yadav went on to claim that the party’s “strategy to defeat the AAP” was discussed with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul during a Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting before the Assembly polls, where it was decided that “the Congress would go all out”.
Calling the remarks a “big revelation”, AAP Delhi chief Saurabh Bhardwaj alleged that the Rs 44 crore that the Congress had raised “was used not to secure victory for itself but to defeat the AAP and help the BJP”.
Bhardwaj also claimed that the Congress’s decision to field its senior leaders against the AAP’s brass – Sandeep Dikshit against Kejriwal in New Delhi, Farhad Suri against Sisodia in Jangpura and Alka Lamba against Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Atishi in Kalkaji – was also a part of this strategy.
Sisodia and Atishi too hit out at the Congress. In a post on X on Monday, the former Delhi deputy CM said, “Whatever the Congress did was so far visible behind the scenes but now Yadav has come on record and admitted that his party fought the elections not to win but to help the BJP.” Atishi said that the BJP and Congress “pretend to fight on the surface but have friendly relations behind the scenes”.
Incidentally, in February, Yadav was at the stage along with BJP leaders and AAP rebel Swati Maliwal at the swearing-in ceremony of the Rekha Gupta-led BJP government.
The AAP’s attack on the Congress is also aimed at Punjab, with the party hoping to project the Congress as aligned with the BJP so as to send out the message that the Congress cannot be trusted as an Opposition force and only the AAP is capable of taking on the BJP at the national-level.
The attack also serves to deflect attention at a time when the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government in Punjab is facing tough times and has come under attack for its “delayed response” on the flood situation. Recently, it was left embarrassed after being forced to withdraw a controversial land pooling policy following protests by farmers.
In Delhi, the Congress has not won a single Assembly seat since 2015 and Lok Sabha seat since 2009. However, in Punjab, the party has a greater presence and 18 MLAs in the 117-member House.
Delhi Congress media cell chairman Anil Bhardwaj called for the AAP to introspect and accused it of making allegations based on “selective editing” of Yadav’s remarks. “In fact, the AAP is helping the BJP by splitting Opposition votes. They fielded candidates in Goa, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Haryana with the sole intention of cutting into the Congress’s support base. In Delhi too, they gained power while making unsubstantiated allegations against former CM Sheila Dikshit, but now its own government (in Punjab) faces multiple charges of corruption,” he added.