‘Working with BJP’: AAP blames Congress after protest outside PM house

Questioning how Congress leaders could walk to PM Modi’s residence when youth protesters had to confront alleged police brutality while attempting to reach Parliament a day earlier, AAP leaders attacked the Congress.

“During the march towards Parliament, the police did not allow the youth to move even 100 metres ahead, but Rahul Gandhi was allowed to reach directly outside the Prime Minister’s residence. This proves that the BJP and the Congress are working together,” AAP leader Atishi, Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, alleged.

The “double standards of the Delhi Police and the media” had exposed that “the BJP and the Congress are two sides of the same coin”, she added.

AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that the BJP and the Congress were “working together” to diffuse a movement which “belongs entirely to the youth and has emerged organically.”

“These young people are the real stakeholders of this country, and the government wants to suppress them because they are beyond its control. Today, the understanding between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi stands exposed before the entire country,” he alleged.

Your duet with BJP failed: Congress hits back

Chief organiser of the Congress Sewa Dal, Srinivas B V, hit back at AAP, alleging a duet between the Arvind Kejriwal-led party and the BJP. “You must be very pained. We can understand. Your ongoing duet with BJP has failed, is that why..?” Srinivas posted on X.

He also accused AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh of being associated with BJP national IT in-charge Amit Malviya and newly inducted BJP Rajya Sabha MP and former Kejriwal protege Raghav Chadha.

The public spat between the AAP and the Congress—the principal political rivals in the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections—underlines larger cracks in unity among non-National Democratic Alliance parties.

CJP’s growing appeal and Congress’s muted response

Another significant factor is the growing appeal of the CJP, materialising in the gradually swelling attendance at its Jantar Mantar protest site. Led by former AAP member Abhijeet Dipke, who has publicly denied any ties with the party, the youth pressure group was the first to snowball from a satire seeking Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation into a forum resonating with Gen Z anger on the streets.

Since its gradual transformation from a social media phenomenon to a platform for protest between late May and the first day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament on Monday, the CJP drew support from leaders across political parties but received only a muted response from the Congress.

Before activist Sonam Wangchuk’s indefinite hunger strike took centre stage, AAP was among the first parties to lend public support to it, apart from the Left, followed by other political parties such as the Samajwadi Party, the Shiv Sena (UBT), the Nationalist Congress Party (SP) and the Trinamool Congress, among others.

The Congress expressed support for the movement, but more particularly threw its weight behind Wangchuk, and that too, while underlining its own efforts in this regard. “Shri Sonam Wangchuk has now been on a hunger strike for 19 days, demanding the resignation of the Union Education Minister. The Indian National Congress has been making this very demand for over a month and a half,” Congress general secretary organisation K C Venugopal had said in a post last week.

• Tags:
• Aam Aadmi Party AAP
• CJP Protest
• Cockroach Janta Party
• Congress
• Delhi protest
• Rahul Gandhi