Former union minister and senior Congress leader Manish Tewari is the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate from the Chandigarh parliamentary constituency.
The Congress and the AAP are the only two parties of the alliance in Chandigarh. In the seat-sharing arrangement, Chandigarh went to the Congress. AAP has been sincerely supporting him in true “coalition dharma”.
In the neighbouring state of Punjab, the Congress and the AAP are fighting a bitter battle against each other in all the 13 parliamentary constituencies. They have organised a ‘no holds barred’ campaign against each other.
While the AAP is in power in Punjab, Congress is the principal opposition party. The hostility is natural, more so because of several leaders of the party having been jailed by the government, which Congress claims, out of sheer political vendetta.
This situation is understandable as there are some other states also where the INDIA partners are fighting against each other like in West Bengal, where the Congress is fighting against the Trinamool Congress and Kerala, where the Congress is fighting against the ruling CPM.
However, Manish Tewari is faced with a unique dilemma. He is contesting from Chandigarh, where the Congress and the AAP are in alliance. There is and cannot be any confusion about that and the two parties have gelled quite well.
But Tewari is registered as a voter in Ludhiana, from where he contested in 2004 and 2009.
While he lost in 2004, he won in 2009 and also became a union minister. Later he was shifted to Sri Anandpur Sahib from where he contested in 2019 and won.
However, he retained his vote in Ludhiana only. This time he is contesting from Chandigarh, a constituency he dreamt of contesting from, for a long time.
It will be a unique dilemma for Tewari on June 1, when he has to cast his vote in Ludhiana, where both the Congress as well as the AAP are fighting against each other, among others.
Like senior BJP leader and union minister Piyush Goyal asked Tewari, for whom would he vote, it would be a strange dilemma for him.
In Chandigarh, both parties are aggressively supporting him. He has been a lifelong Congressman having started as an NSUI leader. His father was close to former Prime Minister Ms Indira Gandhi. He was shot dead by Punjab militants on April 3, 1984.
Being a Congressman, and the party having no alliance with the AAP in Punjab, the natural choice for Tewari will be to vote for the Congress. At the same time, he happens to be the alliance candidate in Chandigarh. Just on the penultimate day of campaigning, Delhi Chief Minister and the AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal took out special time for a roadshow in his support in Chandigarh.
This places Tewari in a terrible moral dilemma, to vote for whom and against whom. He has already asserted that he will cast his vote in Ludhiana like he has always done.
Obviously, nobody can ask him which party he voted for as it is his right and confidentiality has to be maintained at all costs. But the dilemma will remain, even after he casts his vote as who must he have voted for?
No matter in whose favour he votes, he will be voting “against the BJP” and that probably explains the unity and the existence of the INDIA bloc as they remain glued together, mainly if not only, to fight “against the BJP” without bothering about the consequences.
This sentiment of being “against the BJP” may keep the alliance glued together for a while, maybe for a little longer if it comes to power, but eventually this ‘Tewari dilemma’ is likely to haunt the INDIA bloc more often than not.
How the alliance manages to handle it remains to be seen.
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