Punjab balancing act: Congress, AAP star campaigners avoid attacks on each other

While INDIA constituents Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have pitted candidates against each other in Punjab, and their local leaderships are at daggers drawn, their respective star campaigners from Delhi have been careful not to attack each other.

In the run-up to polls, the state units of both parties, which were chief rivals in the 2022 Assembly polls, were categorical in opposing any tie-up, and eventually prevailed over their respective high commands in Delhi.

But in their poll rallies in Punjab, the star campaigners of the AAP and Congress have focused their attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, cautioning electors that to safeguard democracy and the Constitution, it was imperative to stop the BJP from returning to power.

Campaigning for Congress candidates, both Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi avoided attacking the ruling AAP, just as AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal has avoided bad-mouthing the opposition Congress.

Addressing a rally in Amritsar, Rahul said Modi and BJP leaders could “change, scrap, finish off and dump the Constitution” if they win the election. He also hit out at Modi and the BJP for “doing nothing for farmers in 10 years of rule”, and of branding them (farmers) as “terrorists” during the 2020-21 farm agitation against the three farm laws that have now been repealed.

Priyanka Gandhi’s address in Khanna last Sunday also centred on Modi, where she hit out at him on farm issues and inflation, among other things. She said the PM “simply failed to understand Punjab’s jazba (spirit)”.

Addressing a gathering in Ferozepur, Kejriwal lashed out at the PM for putting him, his Cabinet colleagues in Delhi and political opponents, in jail. He was also critical of Modi and the BJP for politicising the Ram Temple