Delhi Cong: Maken faces the heat as Lovely rises to take centre stage

New Delhi: While Delhiites still wonder about whom to blame for the power crisis, all political parties too seem to be in the same state of confusion. The BJP blames the Congress, the AAP blames BJP while the Congress blames both the BJP and the AAP for the current situation. But the situation is tougher for the Congress as they have no unity in their leadership. If an election is declared now, the Grand Old Party will be as headless as it ever was. When it comes to the issue of protesting against the power and water crisis, Delhi Congress president Arvinder Singh Lovely has really taken up the cudgels on behalf of the party. He has been protesting against it in almost all parts of Delhi and the new found aggression is there for all to see. “The crisis has to be resolved soon, otherwise we have no option but to cut electricity supply to houses of Manish Sisodia (AAP leader) and BJP leaders,” chief spokesperson for the Delhi Congress, Mukesh Sharma, had threatened a few days ago. Even though the enthusiasm has helped motivate the grassroots worker to some extent, many feel Lovely and his supporters are in too much of a hurry to take control of the state organisation. Arrogance has already started creeping in and murmurs of him rubbing the other senior leaders the wrong way have reached the ears of the high command. [caption id=“attachment_1593355” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Ajay Maken was a former cabinet minister. PIB[/caption] The other contender for leading Delhi has himself lost the Lok Sabha elections to Meenakshi Lekhi of the BJP from New Delhi seat. Former cabinet minister Ajay Maken was in line to take over the party organisation in a post Sheila era, but he too finished third like his six other colleagues in the 2014 elections. Maken had won the Primaries held within the Congress for the seat, but he only polled 182,893 votes compared to 290,642 votes for AAP’s Ashish Khetan, while Meenakshi Lekhi got 453,350 votes. Maken who also heads the party’s powerful media department is considered close to heir apparent Rahul Gandhi. But he was ticked off for taking on Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani for her educational qualification last month, a controversy that led to BJP attacking the Gandhis on their educational background. “Apart from Haroon Yusuf and Mukesh Sharma, who does Lovely have in his team?" asks a Maken loyalist on the condition of anonymity. “He has antagonised the old guard and the current situation is such that infighting is at an all time high in recent years,” he adds. The Dikshits are lying low, especially after mother Sheila went as Governor to Kerala while son Sandeep lost the East Delhi seat to BJP’s Mahesh Giri. Most had expected the son to take up the mantle and carry forward the legacy, but Sandeep seems reluctant to plunge into Delhi politics. He almost reminds us of Rahul Gandhi at the national level, playing the reluctant politician even after being in politics for over ten years now. The drubbing in assembly and Lok Sabha elections forced the two-time MP to reconsider his options. But his camp too feels this is not the right time for Sandeep to jump into the leadership fray. He was even absent for the review meeting held between senior Congress leaders and the former MPs of Delhi last Sunday on 22 June. “There is no such thing as Congress being divided in Delhi, all this infighting is a creation of media,” says Sandeep Dikshit as he junks the argument. “I was not in town on Sunday, which is why I couldn’t attend the meeting” he adds. But Dikshit was not the only one absent, former Delhi Congress chief JP Agarwal too was missing. Agarwal and Shiela Dikshit were locked in a bitter battle for supremacy during Sheila’s last few years as Chief Minister (1998-2013). The Congress president has set up an informal group with AK Antony, Mukul Wasnik, Avinash Pandey and RC Khuntia as members. The general feeling within the Delhi Congress leaders was that though Sheila Dikshit’s reign did carry out development work, it failed to curb price rise. Infighting came to the fore when some criticised Sheila’s style of functioning and not carrying the state unit together with the government, and that has the high command worried. There is no denying that Lovely is doing his best to take the burning issues to the Opposition camp, but the party remains divided and still lags behind AAP when it comes to street presence in Delhi. AAP has already gone into election mode and has been staging various dharnas against the BJP. Arvind Kejriwal can be heard on the radio questioning Modi government’s decision to increase rail fares without curbing corruption in the system. The water and power crisis has already made the situation grim for the BJP in the state. With Kejriwal now going all out against Modi on the issue of price rise, the mantle of the Opposition still remains with AAP rather than Congress. BJP MLA’s seem to be developing cold feet over fighting an election in the near future, and this comes as a boon for the Congress party. While Lovely hogs the limelight, the other aspirants are biding their time. It’s best the high command intervenes and works out a formula before elections are announced, and Congressmen are back to doing what they do best: infighting.