AAP labels Rahul Gandhi "dishonest," Congress challenges Kejriwal to quit INDIA bloc

As the heat builds up before the Delhi assembly elections, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday targeted all opposition parties, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, calling them “thugs”.

The poster released by AAP on its social media handle has further escalated the already bitter relations between the two parties which are part of the INDIA bloc at the national level.

The poster calls Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Sandeep Dikshit and Ajay Maken “thugs” along with other BJP leaders Yogi Adityanath, Anurag Thakur, Virendraa Sachdeva, Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri while Arvind Kejriwal is being called “honest”.

"Kejriwal's honesty will prevail over all the dishonest people," the poster said.

But the Congress hit back at Kejriwal and dared him to leave the INDIA bloc and alleged that he had given all 7 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi to BJP.

"If Arvind Kejriwal has guts, he should announce that he is leaving the INDIA alliance. Congress party is standing strong with 100 MPs and Arvind Kejriwal is the one who gave all the 7 seats to BJP...You (Arvind Kejriwal) were begging in front of us for alliance during the Lok Sabha elections. Congress made the biggest mistake by forming an alliance with your party for the 7 seats in Delhi...Congress party had to face a huge loss because of this," said Congress candidate from Kalkaji Alka Lamba.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh went a step ahead and said there is a link between Anna Hazare’s movement and RSS while calling AAP as the “B Team” of BJP.

"BJP and AAP are two sides of the same coin. There is no difference between them. We are fighting the elections against AAP and BJP. AAP is the B team of the BJP. There is a collusion between AAP and BJP...Who started the Anna Hazare moment? From where did they get inspiration from? RSS was behind this." Ramesh said.

Ramesh also clarified that the INDIA alliance was only for Lok Sabha elections and has no role in the Delhi Assembly polls. Ramesh attacked Former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and said he became CM by lying.

"The Sheila Dikshit government worked for the development of Delhi. In the past ten years, we saw only 'jumlas' and announcements. Arvind Kejriwal became the Chief Minister of Delhi by lying," Ramesh said.

The Delhi Assembly elections will be held in a single phase on February 5 and the counting will be on February 8. 699 candidates are in the fray for 70 assembly seats in Delhi.

Congress was in power in Delhi for 15 years and has been losing in the last two assembly elections and did not win even a single seat. AAP won 67 and 62 seats in 2015 and 2020 assembly elections respectively out of 70 seats while BJP won 3 and 8 seats in these elections.