'Congress section opposed to supporting AAP'

A section within the Congress was opposed to extending support to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to help it form the government in Delhi, senior Congress leader Janardan Dwivedi said Tuesday.

"There are divergent views within the Congress on extending support to the AAP. There is an opinion in the party that the decision to support AAP was not correct," Dwivedi told reporters here. "Congress will have to take middle path on the issue."

He said the party should perhaps have played the role of opposition and raised people's issues as it failed to win the public mandate.

Dwivedi said the Congress, which ruled Delhi uninterruptedly for 15 years, changed the city for good. "Even then, people rejected us ... we should introspect," he said.

To register their discontent, several Congress activists protested for the second consecutive day outside the party's Delhi office and burnt the effigy of AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal over the decision to give his party outside support to form the government.

Anil Bahot, a protester, said: "The party should have consulted the grassroots workers about its decision."

A source in the party told IANS: "It's a catch-22 situation because if the party withdraws support to the AAP, then it would be shooting itself in the foot as the party in the first place shouldn't have given outside support. We are stuck."

Meanwhile, the party's newly-appointed Delhi chief Arvinder Singh Lovely Tuesday met block presidents on the "present political situation", said sources. Lovely, along with a couple of legislators had met Congress leader and former chief minister Sheila Dikshit Monday.

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel reiterated that the AAP enjoys Congress support. "AAP has our support and we hope they do good work," he said.