BUSY COUNTERING MODI, DELHI CONGRESS UPSET WITH PARTY, RAHUL
With just last three days of electioneering left before Delhi goes to polls next week to elect a new Assembly, the ruling Congress candidates are getting jittery over poor attendance in their rallies compared to those by the Bhartiya Janata Party and upstart Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Even the most popular chief minister Sheila Dikshit appears struggling to win from the New Delhi constituency as her campaigners are wor- ried over Kejriwal contesting against her having a sway over the poor masses, belying the general impression that his vote bank is limited to the middle class.
The party candidates are upset that they are not getting any support from the All India Congress Committee (AICC) despite a victory in Delhi being the most crucial for the party. They wonder at the party spokespersons conducting as if no elections are going on.
"Our spokespersons are so fixed on attacking Narendra Modi for the past two weeks that they have no time to focus on the elections while the BJP is bombarding the media with so many press conferences and statements on its campaign in Delhi," a first-timer candidate complained.
Others are worried that Rahul Gandhi is damaging their prospects instead of his rallies swaying the voters as they point out that he is always late by two to three hours and leaves the gathering dissatisfied from the way he rounds off his speech in four-five minutes without bothering that they had waited for so long to hear him.
Added to their worries is the high prices of vegetable in the capital that refuse to go down despite all claims of the chief minister that the prices will ease close to the polling. The people are angry with the Centre in first place for doing nothing to bring down the inflation that has affected budgets of all families, rich, middle class and the poor.
No surprise, Sheila Dikshit is reported to have impressed upon Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to bet- ter skip the public rallies he was scheduled to address as she feared that his jump into the campaign may do more damage as the culprit behind the price rise due to his economic policies.
When Dikshit is herself in difficulty to win the seat she comfortably won three times, it appears an arduous task for the Congress to win the polls this time. If the Congress is worried over the AAP cutting into its vote bank of the poor, the BJP is equally feeling the pinch as its votes are also being slashed away by the AAP.