Sanjay Singh's arrest exposes chinks in INDIA bloc

AAP leader Sanjay Singh arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the Delhi liquor excise policy case.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh's arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Delhi liquor excise policy case has exposed the fault lines within the INDIA (Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance) bloc.

The Congress, the biggest party in the grouping, is yet to react to the development. Its top leadership has maintained a stoic silence on Singh's arrest. Unlike the gestures shown by former Congress president Rahul Gandhi in the recent past in expressing solidarity with other opposition leaders, the response has been muted this time.

Congress-AAP Ties Nosediving Again?

Rahul Gandhi had paid an impromptu visit to the Delhi residence of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar when his nephew Ajit Pawar broke ranks and joined hands with the BJP. This was followed by his public display of support for Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Kunwar Danish Ali after a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member Ramesh Bidhuri hurled Islamophobic abuses and vile slurs at him in the Lok Sabha on September 22 during the special session. All those optics are missing now.

Though Pawar claimed that Singh's arrest will further consolidate the INDIA bloc, it exposed the chinks in the grouping as except the Congress all other opposition parties rallied behind the AAP. However, senior leader Digvijaya Singh and party general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala were the only two Congress leaders who in their personal capacity came out in support of the arrested AAP lawmaker.

Perhaps the Congress is visibly upset over the recent arrest of its leaders in Punjab by the AAP government. Otherwise the two warring parties had recently buried their hatchet after the Congress decided to oppose the Delhi services bill despite strong opposition by its Delhi and Punjab units.

A Brief Detente

Two developments in Parliament during the monsoon session had seemed to have further cemented the ties between them.

Firstly, Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) chairperson Sonia Gandhi on July 26 walked up to Singh in the Parliament House complex to reassure him that he has her party's full support. Singh was protesting his suspension from the Rajya Sabha for the rest of the monsoon session for repeatedly violating the directives of the chair while disrupting the proceedings of the House on the Manipur issue.

Then came a gesture by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that was widely lauded and appreciated by the AAP leaders. The 90-year-old former Prime Minister came to the Rajya Sabha in a wheelchair to listen to the discussion and register his vote on the Delhi services bill.

AAP convenor and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal too reciprocated by deciding to go slow in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where assembly elections are due in November-December this year.

The two were sworn enemies for years with the Congress blaming Anna Hazare, Kejriwal and the AAP for the rise of the BJP and for creating a negative perception about the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government on the issue of corruption through its proxy, the India Against Corruption (IAC). The Congress claims that the IAC helped Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP win the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Sanjay Singh: AAP’s Liaison Man

It remains to be seen if the new found bonhomie is over or these are minor irritants in their larger bid to oust the BJP from power.

Singh has been the go-to-person in the AAP and the most vocal opposition voice in the Rajya Sabha to an extent that sometimes he appeared to have even crossed the party's red line. Take for example, the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. When the bill was tabled in the Rajya Sabha, Singh was among the members protesting against it in the well of the House till one of his party colleagues reminded him that the AAP had supported the revocation of the article that accorded a special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

He was also among the most visible faces during the Covid pandemic as his residence had turned into a relief centre. Singh shares an excellent rapport with leaders from across the parties and would represent the AAP at all strategy meetings of the opposition parties.

As far as his organisational responsibilities are concerned, he holds the charge of party affairs in the country's politically important state of Uttar Pradesh. He had been the party's election in-charge of Delhi for the 2020 assembly polls and also identified candidates for outer and rural Delhi in 2015.

Aurangzeb Naqshbandi is a senior journalist who has been covering the Congress for 15 years, and is currently associated with Pixstory. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.