The social media handles of both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress have stopped sniping at each other ever since the latter announced that it would oppose the Centre’s Delhi ordinance in Parliament and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted to thank its president Mallikarjun Kharge for “standing with the people of Delhi”. The Congress even tweeted excerpts from Mr. Kejriwal’s speech at the Opposition meeting held in Bengaluru on Tuesday.
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This is in sharp contrast to the run-up to the Bengaluru meeting when leaders from both parties engaged in a bitter battle of words, with senior Delhi Congress leaders like Ajay Maken and Sandeep Dikshit taking a vocal stand on social media platforms against providing support to the ordinance and AAP Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj and other party spokespersons issuing rebuttals at press conferences.
Asked if this a was a conscious decision taken by the party, an AAP leader said, “There is no specific message to not attack the Congress, but when the party is tweeting the CM’s speech from its official handle, it’s understood what line we have to take.”
An AAP legislator in Delhi reacted on similar lines and said, “Our focus has been to remove [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi, everything else is secondary.”
However, Anil Bhardwaj, chairman of the Delhi Congress’s communication department, attacked the AAP government on Wednesday claiming that the relief camps set up to relocate flood-affected people from the Yamuna banks have been totally mismanaged. “A delegation of Delhi Congress leaders, visited the relief camps and saw a depressing picture in these camps as they lacked basic facilities,” he said in a statement.