AAP and Congress are both fighting internal rift over government formation in Delhi.
While the Ramlila ground is being prepared for Arvind Kejriwal’s swearing in ceremony, the dark clouds over AAP’s fate are looming large. The party faced its first post-election crisis on Tuesday, after MLA Vinod Kumar Binny, upset at being left out of Arvind Kejriwal’s cabinet, stormed out of a meeting at the latter’s residence in Kaushambi.
Arvind Kejriwal had announced his cabinet which included the names of Manish Sisodia, a former journalist who won from Patparganj constituency, Rakhi Birla, the giant killer who defeated PWD Minister Rajkumar Chouhan, Somnath Bharti (defeated Women and Child Development Minister Kiran Walia) Saurabh Bhardwaj, Girish Soni and Satendra Jain.
Reportedly, party member Yogendra Yadav was trying to pacify Binny until late at night, amid speculation that the MLA had threatened to hold a tell-all press conference on Wednesday. Today morning, Yadav briefed media and said that Binny was “not greedy for post” and that there was no rift inside the party.
Sanjay Singh, a member of the party’s Political Affairs Committee, too said the constitution of the cabinet was largely Kejriwal’s decision. “It is the prerogative of the chief minister and there is no discord in the party,” he said.
Reportedly, the party had offered Binny the role of parliamentary secretary to the chief minister, but he was holding out for a cabinet berth. Members of Binny’s family also confirmed he was unhappy. They said he deserved a ministerial berth for “defeating a heavyweight like A K Walia, former health minister, from Laxmi Nagar”.
Binny had left the Congress to contest as an independent in the municipal elections from Laxmi Nagar. He won two consecutive terms as a councillor from ward number 214. He was the first person to hold regular mohalla sabhas and was one of those who mooted the idea to the AAP.
The soon-to-be-CM Kejriwal, however, played down reports.
All this happened while Congress leader Janardan Dwivedi confirmed the internal break in Congress over supporting AAP for forming government in Delhi. A large section of the party was up against the idea of supporting AAP on the grounds that it has indulged in name-calling and foul mouthing against Congress leaders despite its support to Kejriwal.
Dwivedi even accepted that “the way letter of support was given to AAP was not right”.
The Congress party has already changed its stance from ‘unconditional support’ to ‘issue and policy based support’ to AAP.
The wide confusion made the party issue a statement that there was no point of ‘second thinking’ on the decision of extending support to AAP. But the speculations of not getting a government amid all the confusion and Congress’ change of heart are soaring high.
