The resignation of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president Arvinder Singh Lovely has come as a shock for the party, when the General Elections are less than a month away. It will have an impact on both the Congress as well as the INDIA bloc.
The party may level several charges against Lovely. It may accuse him of several things to counter his rebellion.
But the fact is that he has raised certain serious issues, which would have emerged anyway, may be a little later.
Lovely’s rebellion is symptomatic of the deep inherent fault lines prevailing within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).
His timing of rebellion and resignation may not be right, as he should ideally have rebelled the day two parties decided to align, that does not belittle the significance of the issues he has raised.
The Aam Aadmi Party was founded on a campaign India Against Corruption, which targeted the Congress.
The Congress’ decline and fall was the result of that campaign led by Arvind Kejriwal. Lovely was right to point it out.
And it is ironic that when Kejriwal was arrested on corruption charges, the same Congress, which he demonised and pronounced as most corrupt, came to his rescue.
Not just that, it was the Congress, which had complained against the Delhi Liquor Policy alleging massive corruption in it.
The policy was later scrapped. Kejriwal is in jail for the alleged corruption in the Delhi Liquor policy.
There are other factors also for Lovely’s rebellion like the ignoring and overruling of the party’s rank and file by the senior leadership.
Practically the Delhi Congress got just one of the seven parliamentary seats in the national capital after the alliance with the AAP.
In the alliance agreement with the AAP, Congress actually got three, while AAP got four.
And of the three that Congress got, two were given to rank outsiders. Kanhaiya Kumar joined the Congress from the CPI.
Moreover, he is from Bihar and contested 2019 elections from Begusarai on the CPI ticket. He has been fielded from North East Delhi.
Udit Raj, who bagged the second seat of North-West Delhi, was a BJP MP till 2019.
He resigned from the party and joined the Congress only after he was denied the ticket by the BJP. JP Aggarwal is the only Congressman who got the ticket from Chandni Chowk.
Added to that is the indifference and dismissive attitude of the party high command, whosoever that may include and constitute, towards the state leadership everywhere.
If Lovely is to be believed, the party high command ignored Delhi unit’s reservation and resistance against an alliance with the AAP.
The high command is apparently looking at the bigger picture of “defeating the BJP” and forming a government at the centre. It is a different story whether that will really happen.
It probably does not mind sacrificing "small-time" leaders (only in high command's eyes) like Lovely for a bigger, larger and greater cause of “saving the constitution and democracy” that it claims is under threat from the BJP.
Lovely’s resignation is not the first act of discord within the INDIA bloc. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee of the Trinamool Congress and Kerala Chief Minister Pinayari Vijayana of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) are vitriolic in their criticism against the Congress. Both the TMC and the CPM are otherwise part of the INDIA bloc.
This for sure is just the beginning. The deep fault lines within the ‘alliance’ are likely to get deeper in due course of time.
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