Arvind Kejriwal can't be trusted, alliance with AAP was a mistake: Congress' Ajay Maken

Congress leader Ajay Maken has said that the Congress' decision to partner with AAP was a strategic mistake. (File photo: PTI)

Congress leader Ajay Maken on Thursday said that allying with the Aam Aadmi Party after the 2013 elections in Delhi, and then again in the Lok Sabha elections, was a mistake and that its national convener was a leader who could not be trusted.

In an interaction with CNN-News18 ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections scheduled for February 5, Maken, a longtime critic of Kejriwal and the AAP, said that Kejriwal was a leader who lacked direction and ideology and that AAP being in power had proven detrimental to Delhi and its people.

"It was a mistake on part of the Congress to form an alliance with AAP. It has proven detrimental to the people of Delhi. Arvind Kejriwal is not a leader who can be trusted. The Congress has raised its voice against the AAP government's misdeeds since we believe that the BJP has failed at its job as the Opposition. We believe that Congress must take that (Opposition) space," Maken, who serves as the Congress Treasurer, told CNN-News18.

Notably, the Congress has long believed that the AAP has grown in states at its expense in states where it has traditionally been in a direct battle with the BJP. However, the meteoric rise of the BJP after the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 gradually saw efforts to unite Opposition parties to fight a common enemy.

The formation of the INDIA bloc of Opposition parties also saw the inclusion of the AAP under the banner. The Congress and the AAP also contested the elections in an alliance in Delhi but drew a blank on all 7 seats.

The Congress and the AAP had also partnered after the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections delivered a hung verdict. Although the government lasted only 40 days, the Congress' support enabled the AAP to form a government and ensured its rise to power. Maken has previously attributed this decision by the Congress as the reason behind its own decline in the capital.

While there was a buzz around the two parties joining hands again for the Delhi elections, Maken said that it was AAP leaders who came out and said that the alliance would not apply to the Delhi elections. The AAP has been in power in the national capital for two straight terms and is eying a third term in the coming elections.

It is learnt that the Congress was initially reluctant to attack the AAP and its leader Kejriwal given its partnership as part of the INDIA bloc. However, the bonhomie soon gave way to animosity as AAP joined ranks with the Trinamool Congress and other Opposition parties to demand consider an Opposition bloc sans a Congress leader at the helm.