The high-stakes Delhi election battle, which brought out the fissures within the opposition INDIA bloc, is seeing Congress allies strengthen the hand of its rival, the Aam Aadmi Party. The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamol Congress has asked its party MP and actor Shatrughan Sinha to campaign for the AAP.
Sinha campaigning for the AAP would especially be painful for the Congress because it was Rahul Gandhi who made the actor-politician move away from the BJP and contest on a party ticket from Patna Sahib in Bihar in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Popular as Shotgun, Sinha is known for his on-screen “khaamosh” and could use that to boost the campaign of the AAP, which is facing a strong attack from the BJP amid a 10-year anti-incumbency.
The AAP, which was a product of the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement, has been battling the taint of the Delhi excise policy case. Several of its leaders, including AAP Convenor Arvind Kejriwal, were arrested and spent time in Tihar in the case.
Though AAP claims it to be a case of political witch-hunt and abuse of central investigating agencies, Kejriwal stepped down from Delhi Chief Minister’s post to seek a public mandate in the election, votes for which will be cast on February 5.
The intense battle on the ground needs all guns to fire and that is where the INDIA allies, like TMC, Samajwadi Party, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar’s NCP faction are backing the AAP over the Congress.
It was the AAP, which formed a government in Delhi displacing the Congress, which had an undisrupted run of 15 years in the Capital.
Known as “Bihari Babu”, Sinha could especially be effective in Delhi’s trans-Yamuna areas, which has a high density of Purvanchali voters. The Purvanchali voters are around 33% of Delhi’s electorate, and the BJP has been using Bihari celebrities like Manoj Tiwari and Ravi Kishen to woo them.
News agency PTI quoted sources as saying that Sinha would be canvassing for the AAP in at least three constituencies on February 1 and 2. He is an MP from West Bengal’s Asansol.
These constituencies include New Delhi from which AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal is fighting, Kalkaji from where Chief Minister Atishi is seeking re-election, and Jangpura, the seat of AAP veteran Manish Sisodia.
Among the other INDIA members, the SP is considering sending some MPs to canvass for the AAP, according to reports.
However, Sinha’s campaigning is bitter for the Congress as he is a former party member.
The Congress fielded him in 2019 from Patna Sahib, where he lost to the BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad with a margin of 2.84 lakh votes. Sinha quit the Congress and joined the TMC in 2022.
After joining the party in 2019, Sinha said he thought “the Congress is the political future of India”. But he quit the Congress and joined the TMC in 2022.
So, Shatrughan Sinha’s campaigning in Delhi isn’t just about him shoring up support for the AAP, it is as much about INDIA bloc members snubbing the Congress.