Shortly after the Congress made it clear that it will not support the Centre’s ordinance on the control of administrative services in Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday said the grand old party has regularly compromised the interest of its state units to keep Rahul Gandhi relevant. BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya noted that the state units of Congress are opposing AAP and Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in Delhi and West Bengal, respectively, but the central leadership has struck a deal with both parties “with no gain in return”.

“Delhi Congress had opposed support for AAP. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is standing up against Mamata Banerjee’s murderous regime in West Bengal. But in both states, central leadership of the Congress has struck a deal with AAP and TMC, with no gain in return,” Malviya said in a tweet.

“Congress has regularly compromised interest of it’s state units and reduced itself to a bunch of people running around Rahul Gandhi, to keep him relevant,” he added.

After days of suspense, the Congress, in what is seen as a huge relief for Delhi chief Arvind Kejriwal, said it will not support the Centre’s ordinance on the control of administrative services in Delhi and will oppose any such attempt of the central government to “sabotage federalism” in the country.

Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said the party has decided to oppose the Delhi ordinance in Parliament whenever a bill comes up.

“We are consistently opposing the attempts of the Union government to sabotage federalism. We are consistently opposing the attitude of the central government to run the opposition states through the governors. Our stand is very clear, we are not going to support the Delhi ordinance,” he told PTI.

Boost to Opposition unity?

Venugopal hoped that the AAP will now participate in the upcoming meeting of the opposition parties in Bengaluru.

“I think they are going to join the meeting tomorrow. This is our thinking,” The Congress leader said.

Reacting to Venugopal’s remarks, AAP MP and national spokesperson Raghav Chadha tweeted, “Congress announces its unequivocal opposition to the Delhi Ordinance. This is a positive development.”

The AAP is, however, yet to make it clear if it will join the opposition meeting and said it will announce the decision after the meeting of its Political Affairs Committee.