Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely, along with supporters, holds a protest against the AAP government at Delhi Secretariat
The tenuous understanding between Delhi's ruling AAP and the Congress was tested to the extreme today as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal received a tongue-lashing from the party he had relentlessly targeted last year after the fatal gang-rape of a young medical student in December 2012.
"For the Chief Minister to say he will look into the gang-rape case only next week is hypocritical. He should act on such incidents and not wait for days. They (AAP) didn't wait even a day before protesting after the December 16 gang-rape," said Delhi Congress leader Arvinder Lovely.
"Is this the same party that accused Sheila Dikshit of making excuses? Today when they should take responsibility, they say that we need to study this issue."
Workers of the Congress, which provides external support to the AAP or Aam Aadmi Party, today protested outside the Delhi government headquarters demanding action in the gang-rape case.
Arvind Keriwal is credited with defeating the Congress government of Sheila Dikshit in state polls after winning a massive thumbs-up from Delhi's voters for his litany of promises including safety of women, which struck a chord in a city scarred by the horrific assault on a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in 2012.
The AAP, on the back-foot after the alleged gang-rape of a foreign national just weeks after they took power, has offered the same argument that it had pilloried the Sheila Dikshit government for - their government has no control over the Delhi Police.
"Why are rapes happening in Delhi?...If crime does not happen in Delhi, it is not because of the Dehli Police, but inspite of it," Mr Kejriwal said.
Mr Lovely accused Mr Kejriwal of being "more interested in power supply problems" than the gang-rape case.
On Wednesday, Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit, Sheila Dikshit's son, had scathingly said that the gang-rape was not an issue for the AAP as the Danish woman was not a voter.