Cutting across affiliations, Delhi Congress leaders joined hands on Sunday to extend full support to the newly-appointed local unit chief Ajay Maken at a massive function organised at the party’s Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg headquarters.
What the party had miserably failed to achieve during the lok Sabha and Assembly elections was achieved by the party at its Sunday function where local leaders in unison made a fervent appeal to thousands of workers to strengthen Maken’s hands in rebuilding the organisation from the grass roots level.
Among the leaders present were former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Congress treasurer Moti lal Vora, party’s newly-appointed communications head RS Surjewala, party secretary Manish Chatrath, outgoing Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh lovely, former Union Minister Jagdish Tytler, former MPs Sajjan Kumar, Ramesh Kumar, Mahabal Mishra and JP Aggarwal, former Congress legislative head Haroon Yusuf, former Delhi Congress president Subhash Chopra, former city Ministers Ramakant Goswami, Kiran Walia, Yoganand Shastri and Mangat Ram Singhal, former Speaker Prem Singh, city Women Congress chief Onika Mehrotra, former MlAs Mukesh Sharma, Jai Kishan, Anjali Rai, Kunwar Karan Singh, Tarwinder Singh Marwah and Malaram Gangwal. Former city Minister AK Walia, former MlAs Mateen Ahmed, Hassan Ahmed and Asif Mohd were conspicuous by their absence.
The battered Congress, which faced humiliating defeats in three elections in the past one year, had been plagued with factionalism with different groups working against each other in the past several months. Taking over as the new president of Delhi Congress, Ajay Maken on Sunday rapped AAP for its “barefaced lies” and said, “Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is making demands like full statehood and Haryana water for Delhi to cover his failures as he knows these cannot be fulfilled.” Maken is the 21st president of Delhi Congress.
Noting that Congress faces big challenge after losing three elections in the city in 15 months, he said the party can stage a comeback by “sticking to truth” as he cited BJP’s drubbing in the polls after it had swept all seven lok Sabha seats in May last. BJP lost due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “false promises”, including ones on black money, he said.
Attacking Kejriwal, Maken said he had “escaped” to naturopathy treatment while his party was locked in an internal feud. “Kejriwal goes to Modi and demands full statehood for Delhi knowing well that BJP did not make such a promise in its manifesto. He then demands water from Haryana.”