Whether any tactical accommodation between BJP and Kejriwal is possible .... is anybody's guess !!

 The bitterness between Congress and AAP runs deep. Kejriwal’s India Against Corruption movement — launched alongside Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi in 2010-11 — inflicted severe reputational damage on the Congress-led UPA government. The AAP subsequently swept Delhi, reducing Congress to zero seats in the assembly. It then ousted Congress from Punjab in 2022 and has eroded Congress vote share in Goa and Gujarat.

Whether any tactical accommodation between BJP and Kejriwal is now possible remains doubtful. Senior BJP leaders have long regarded Kejriwal as an anarchist — a label unlikely to fade regardless of courtroom outcomes.

For now, all three parties — BJP, Congress, and AAP — are insisting the verdict proves their respective narratives. That, in itself, may be the most revealing verdict of all.

A Delhi court discharged Arvind Kejriwal and co-accused in the excise policy case, shredding CBI’s case. But instead of opposition unity, the verdict triggered a bitter war of words — with Congress alleging BJP is manipulating agency proceedings to boost AAP at Congress’s expense in upcoming state elections.

The court on Friday discharged Arvind Kejriwal and others in the high-profile liquor policy scam case, delivering a stinging rebuke to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The AAP chief and former Delhi chief minister broke down in tears as the verdict was read — but the emotional moment was quickly swamped by political recrimination, memes, and a deeper suspicion gripping the Congress: that the BJP had engineered the acquittal for electoral gain.

If the theory doing the rounds in political circles is correct — that the BJP deliberately allowed Arvind Kejriwal to walk free from all charges in the liquor policy scam — then the experiment, as some strategists put it, has succeeded.

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Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera did not mince words. “Not surprising at all; most predictable. This is what the BJP does before every election. If it suits them to weaken the Congress, they will strengthen Congress’ rivals,” clamed Khera.

The Congress leader also argued “that is what they did in the past as well. Yesterday, they gave sanction for prosecution against P. Chidambaram to weaken Congress in Tamil Nadu.”

Khera also tweeted in Hindi: ‘BJP is not a political party. It is like an Ichhadhari Naag — a shape-shifting serpent. It has only one obsessive mission: Congress Mukt Bharat. To achieve that, the BJP can go to any extent.”

Congress drew pointed attention to a glaring asymmetry in media coverage. Just one day before Kejriwal’s acquittal, senior Congress leader Bhupinder Hooda was also exonerated in a separate case — yet it passed almost without notice.

“Almost every channel ran primetime debates on Kejriwal. There was silence on Hooda ji. This is especially puzzling given that Hooda ji faced a much harsher media and social media trial,” a Congress leader noted. “The truth is simple: the BJP decides what to amplify and when — glorifying sinners as saints only to suit its electoral prospects,” he added.

The sight of Kejriwal weeping at his press conference might, in another political climate, have drawn sympathy from opposition ranks. Instead, it drew mockery.

Congress leader Gurdeep Singh Sappal asked whether Kejriwal’s tears carried “a bit of remorse too” — for years of accusations he levelled against Congress leaders when he launched the AAP in 2011-12. 

“False accusations, fake messiah, hollow Lokpal — these were all part of the charade he orchestrated,” Sappal wrote on X, noting that Kejriwal’s early political career was built on targeting former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and the late Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit.

Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate went further, posting a meme of Kejriwal crying — complete with sound effects — while calling Rahul Gandhi “our leader, a lion” for purportedly facing 32 cases against Kejriwal’s one.
Kejriwal did not let the Congress attacks pass. 

“I want to ask the Congress — Kejriwal went to jail; did Robert Vadra go to jail? AAP leader Sanjay Singh went to jail. Did Rahul Gandhi go to jail? What is Congress saying? Does it have no shame?” he said at a press conference. 

He also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah of having hatched a conspiracy against him.

The political calculation becomes clearer when viewed through the prism of upcoming elections. Punjab — where the AAP is the incumbent government and Congress the principal challenger — goes to polls early next year along with Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand, and Manipur. Gujarat follows in December 2027.

Pawan Khera spelled out the Congress reading explicitly: “Proceedings against their ‘convenient allies’ in the AAP and others will quietly vanish in light of the Gujarat and Punjab elections.”

In the 2022 Gujarat assembly elections, the BJP polled 52.50 per cent of votes and swept 156 of 182 seats. Congress won only 17 seats with 27.28 per cent. The fledgling AAP, with 12.92 per cent, won five seats — but more significantly, damaged Congress prospects in dozens of constituencies. 

A strengthened AAP ahead of the next cycle would, in Congress’s calculus, hurt the grand old party far more than the BJP.

Analysts broadly agree: the court verdict is likely to boost AAP’s electoral standing in Punjab, where it holds power and faces an anti-incumbency challenge.  

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