Even as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress joined hands to contest election for Chandigarh Municipal Corporation mayoral election, the Congress on Tuesday staged a demonstration against the AAP government in Punjab over the deteriorating law and order situation – exposing, in the process, the chinks in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc.
On the one hand, the Congress and the AAP announced their ‘unity’ in the Union Territory of Chandigarh, which is the capital of Punjab (and Haryana), while on the other hand, a demonstration by Congress’s Punjab unit against its INDIA bloc partner, the AAP, currently in power in Punjab, sent out an ambiguous message regarding the coalition’s smooth sailing in the run-up to the 2024 parliamentary election.
On Monday, after announcing the alliance for the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation mayoral poll, former Union Minister and senior Congress leader Pawan Bansal asserted that the Congress and the AAP in Chandigarh have become the first constituents of the INDIA bloc “to implement the decisions and sentiments of INDIA to not let the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win elections by default.”
