Zee Media Bureau/Manisha Singh
New Delhi: Even as Arvind Kejriwal is gearing up to take the oath and become Delhi`s youngest chief minister later this week, speculations are already rife as to how long the partnership between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress will last.
Ending the fortnight-long deadlock, the Aam Aadmi Party said on Monday that they were ready to form the government in the national capital with outside support from the Congress.
AAP had sought people`s opinion on whether they should go ahead and form the government. Addressing the press yesterday, they said that they had decided to go with the results of the `referendum` which overwhelmingly favoured the party taking the reins of power.
Later, AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal met Lt Governor Najeeb Jung and and handed over him a letter staking claim to form government.
Delhi which voted on 04 December threw up a fractured mandate when the results were announced on December 08. The BJP emerged as the single largest party winning 31 seats and SAD won one seat. Meanwhile, the AAP surprised everyone with their stellar performance, in their first outing, by winning 28 seats. The Congress was reduced to 08 seats. However, no party had the majority to form the government.
The BJP, when invited told the LG that they could not prove majority on the floor of the house. And the AAP went on record saying that they would rather sit in the Opposition than take the support of either the BJP or the Congress.
But the party started having second thoughts when the Congress offered unconditional support to the AAP. Its another matter that now the grand old party has done a U-turn and said that the support is not unconditional. After Congress` offer, Kejriwal accepted that there were divisions in the party on whether they should take support from the Congress and form the government in Delhi. Thus, the decision to go to the people.
Kejriwal has said that it was the people`s decision that they should go ahead with government formation but people have questioned as to how prudent it was to take public opinion on such a the critical matter. The manner in which the whole exercise was done is also being questioned.
Also being questioned is the fact that should AAP have taken the support of the same party that they had dubbed as corrupt and inefficient.
Meanwhile, ahead of government formation, AAP leaders are already saying that they will not hesitate to investigate Congress leaders embroiled in scams, even if it meant the falling of the government. These talks have all the more fuelled speculations about the longevity of the AAP-Congress pact.
AAP members have themselves expressed doubt about the stability of such a government. AAP leader Prashant Bhushan said yesterday that in view of the Congress’ `track record` he did not expect the Delhi government to survive for long.
Congress` motive for giving support to the AAP is also being questioned. It is being said that the grand old party wanted the AAP to form the government so that it could be exposed and fail to fulfill its poll promises and earn the ire of the people.
On the other hand, the Congress too is divided on whether they should have extended outside support to the AAP with party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi saying today that there was an opinion in the Congress that perhaps the decision to support AAP for government formation was not correct.
However, it seems that the AAP is ready for any eventuality and have said that they will go to the people if the Congress withdraws support and their minority government falls.
