Explained: The rift between AAP and the Delhi Congress unit

The grand old party's Delhi and Punjab units are adamant about ensuring that the AICC does not declare its support to the AAP in the ordinance issue.

The one thing that kept the Patna Opposition meeting from being a concrete announcement of plans by at least 15 parties to take on the BJP in the 2024 general elections is the bone of contention between the AAP and the Congress regarding the Delhi ordinance row.

The central government had issued an ordinance allowing the Delhi L-G to decide on the posting and transfers of civil servants in the national capital. This was in subversion of an earlier Supreme Court order that had given the Delhi government the right to take decisions regarding the posting of IAS/IPS officials within its boundaries.

Since this intervention by the Centre, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been going around the country and gathering support from Opposition leaders on this issue. Most leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar, M K Stalin, K Chandrashekar Rao and others have agreed to voice their support for the AAP when the Parliament's monsoon session begins.

Read | Parliament's Monsoon session likely from third week of July

The one party that has remained indecisive on the issue is the Congress. The grand old party's Delhi and Punjab units are adamant about ensuring that the AICC does not declare its support to the AAP in this regard. They had even met AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to convince them of the same.

To understand the cause of this rift, we have to go back to 2011—the year when the Indian anti-corruption movement began and Anna Hazare, along with Arvind Kejriwal and a few others, started becoming the most talked-about people in the nation's political landscape.

Anna Hazare's hunger strike and the Manmohan Singh government bending its knees to the same and backtracking on the Jan Lokpal Bill was the highlight. The huge support that Hazare and Kejriwal's protests saw helped topple the Sheila Dikhsit-led Congress government in Delhi after a period of close to 16 years, after which Kejriwal became Chief Minister.

The outcome of the Delhi polls would foreshadow the 2014 general elections, in which the UPA would be brushed aside by Modi.

The situation in Punjab is almost similar. The northern state had been a bastion of the Congress since Independence, and has, for long stretches of history, seen a Congress government in power.

From 2017 to 2022, the Congress ruled the state until the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP unit in Punjab toppled it from power.

Read | AAP working as B team of BJP; won't offer it any seat for LS polls in Madhya Pradesh: Congress MLA

These regional clashes between the Congress and the AAP are the chief reasons behind the problems between the two parties when it comes to the ordinance issue.

Congress leaders who have seen their parties lose to the AAP in earlier Assembly elections do not want any sort of national-level alliance with the party.

The AAP, on the other hand, has been trying to woo the Congress. Kharge, however, has said that the issue of whether to support the AAP in the Parliament or not will only be decided when the issue is tabled inside the House.

The AAP, meanwhile, has threatened to withdraw from the Opposition's Shimla meeting and has also said that it would be difficult for them to be in an alliance with Congress if it does not make its stance on the Delhi ordinance clear.