Congress’ 8 winners against backing out of AAP-led govt

NEW DELHI: Despite the clamour within Congress for withdrawing support to Aam Aadmi Party, the eight elected representatives want their party to stick to its stand. As of now, the party’s official stand is that all eight will turn up to support Kejriwal during the floor test, which will be held in the assembly within seven days of oath taking.

It is learnt that the view was conveyed assertively by at least five of the eight MLAs to AICC general secretary incharge of Delhi, Shakeel Ahmed, at a meeting on Wednesday. The views of the remaining three—DPCC chief Arvinder Singh, Ballimaran MLA Haroon Yusuf and Sultanpur Majra MLA Jai Kishan—were sought over phone and they too were firmly of the view that the Congress must not change its stand.

The Central leadership, too, is apprehensive that ditching AAP at this stage by withdrawing support will go against Congress and would prove counter productive and render the party vulnerable to attacks that it breached the commitment because it wanted to protect the corrupt in its ranks.

Also, the eight Congress MLAs feel that withdrawing support would make AAP a martyr and expose the Congress to a complete wipeout in are-election.

The meeting with AICC general secretary happened in the backdrop of voices of dissent from the influential minority in the party. In fact, the protests on Tuesday at the DPCC headquarters, too, are learnt to have been steered by this group. An east Delhi MLA and a former minister of Sheila Dikshit’s government were part of the protests too.