Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit has attacked AAP over Danish woman's alleged rape
The tenuous understanding between Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress, which provides external support to its government in Delhi, was stretched thin as the two parties exchanged a series of barbs today.
The alleged gang-rape of a Danish woman in the heart of Delhi on Tuesday night was seized by the Congress, which had been the target of a relentless AAP campaign last year after the fatal gang-rape of a young medical student on December 16, 2012.
"It is very sad that they are not making this (rape) an issue, perhaps because this Danish woman does not have a vote here in Delhi," said Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit.
He accused the AAP of joining the protests against the 2012 gang-rape only because of the media focus. "Their response to the incident was completely political. In fact there was an incident of a little girl's rape in my constituency and they did nothing."
Mr Dikshit's mother, Sheila Dikshit lost power in last month's state polls and was defeated by Mr Kejriwal in her own constituency of New Delhi.
The two parties are also at odds over economic policy, with the AAP scrapping the previous Congress government's move to allow Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, shutting the doors to international chains like Walmart and Tesco.
Commerce Minister Anand Sharma called the decision "devoid of logic." (
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This morning, Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid called the AAP a party of "Jurassic ideas, no serious ideology and some of the most third rate people across the country."
"I know how much stink there is in AAP. They're lucky that today every stink is being described as a fragrance. In 15 days they've done enough damage to a sensible person's perception about them," Mr Khurshid told NDTV. (
read: 'AAP a party of third rate stink')
Amid the constant bickering, AAP minister Manish Sisodia offered a conciliatory statement at the Indian Express "Idea Exchange" event today, saying, "Our movement was never anti-Congress. It was, and is, anti-corruption."