The Congress leader said the AAP leader is taking the BJP’s ‘vendetta politics’ to another level.
New Delhi:
A day after the ED arrested AAP leader Sanjay Singh, the Congress came out in support of its INDIA ally and condemned the BJP’s vendetta politics but also took the opportunity to raise the recent arrests of its leaders in Punjab to take. It also took a veiled dig at the AAP saying, “We cannot become the ones who resist”.
Breaking the party’s silence at the national level over the Rajya Sabha MP’s arrest in the Delhi liquor policy case, Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal on Thursday said law enforcement agencies were being used to settle political scores.
“The arrest of AAP MP Sh. @SanjayAzadSln ji by the ED takes the BJP’s vendetta politics to another level. We stand in full solidarity with him and reject the use of law enforcement agencies to settle political scores,” Mr Venugopal said in a post on X , formerly Twitter.
AAP MP Sh. @SanjayAzadSln ji’s arrest by the ED takes the BJP’s vendetta politics to another level.
We stand in full solidarity with him and reject the use of law enforcement agencies to settle political scores.
For this reason we also oppose the arrests of All India…
— KC Venugopal (@kcvenugopalmp) October 5, 2023
The next two paragraphs of the message also contain a message for the AAP. Mr Venugopal last month raised the arrest of Congress MP Sukhpal Khaira in connection with a 2015 drug case, and that of party leader and former deputy chief minister OP Soni by the Punjab Vigilance Department in July.
“For this reason, we also oppose the arrest of All India Kisan Sabha chairman Sh. @SukhpalKhaira ji and former Punjab Dty. CM Sh. OP Saini ji (sic) by Punjab Police. Democratic principles of due process and authorities acting within their limits beyond the limits of the Constitution are non-negotiable. We cannot become those we oppose,” the message said.
INDIA comparisons
Mr Khaira’s arrest had sparked a bitter feud between the two INDIA allies. Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge had said that the party will not tolerate injustice and those who are unjust “do not survive for long”, while the party’s Punjab president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring had called the arrest “an attempt to intimidate the opposition”. named.
A leader of the AAP’s state unit had said it would not form an alliance with a party that is “already so discredited” in Punjab. A day after the arrest, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal had tried to calm tense tempers and asserted that his party was committed to the INDIA alliance and would not part with it.
However, there were tensions even before the arrest. Punjab is one of the states that is likely to find it difficult for the INDIA alliance when it comes to seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha polls.
Days after the third meeting of the INDIA alliance in September, Punjab Chief Minister Anmol Gagan Mann had said that the AAP would contest on all 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state and claimed that this was the “direction” of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.
Congress Punjab chief Warring had also said that the party is gearing up to contest on all seats.
