Blame game in Cong after its rout in Delhi polls

A day after the party's rout in the Delhi polls, the knives are out in the Congress with leaders blaming each other and raising questions on whether the grand old party has outsourced the task of defeating the BJP to others.

The Congress has, however, disapproved of the blame game and asked its leaders to introspect, instead of going public against each other.

AICC Delhi in-charge PC Chacko sought to put the blame for the party's decline in the national capital on late chief minister Sheila Dikshit, saying the Congress started losing ground here in 2013. Dikshit was the chief minister of Delhi at the time.

"The party's downfall started since 2013. It lost all the elections thereafter and the new outfit, AAP, took away all the Congress's vote bank," Chacko said, without naming Dikshit.

With party colleague Milind Deora slamming him for his comments, Chacko said he had not named Dikshit and his remarks were wrongly being interpreted to run a campaign against him.

"I did not name Sheilaji, who ensured good governance and an all-round development of Delhi during the 15-year Congress rule," he told PTI.

The poor poll show of the party in the national capital has triggered a blame game with Congress leader Sharmishtha Mukherjee taking on senior party colleague P Chidambaram, who had welcomed the AAP win as a "defeat of bluff and bluster".

Mukherjee asked the former Union minister if the state Congress units should shut shop in case the party had decided that others would take on the BJP across states.

"With due respect sir, just want to know- has Congress outsourced the task of defeating BJP to state parties? If not, then why r we gloating over AAP victory rather than being concerned abt our drubbing? And if 'yes', then we (PCCs) might as well close shop!" she said in a tweet.

Responding to her, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) working chief Devender Yadav said, "It's really a matter of concern."
"It would have been better if the leaders of the Congress party in Delhi and elsewhere would have looked at, introspected upon their own roles, responsibilities, commitment to the party and defined their own duties towards the campaign in Delhi. Then things would have sorted out themselves."
Deora slammed Chacko on Twitter for his remarks, saying, "Sheila Dikshit ji was a remarkable politician and administrator. During her tenure as chief minister, Delhi was transformed and Congress was stronger than ever. Unfortunate to see her being blamed after her death. She dedicated her life to Congress and the people of Delhi."
Dikshit's former aide Pawan Khera wrote on Twitter: "Just a data point. In 2013, when we lost, Congress vote share in Delhi was 24.55 pc. Sheila ji was not involved in 2015, when the vote share slipped to 9.7 pc. In 2019, when she was back in charge, the vote share came up to 22.46 pc."