Miscommunication Caused AAP-Congress Tangle. How Mamata Banerjee Solved it

The Congress agreement today to back Aam Aadmi Party against the Centre's executive order on Delhi bureaucrats, has saved the opposition unity efforts from crash-landing before a take-off. Sources said while the party intended to oppose the Ordinance all along, a miscommunication had almost landed the opposition in a crisis. The matter was finally sorted out with the mediation of Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee – the Bengal leader doing all the heavy lifting.

At the June 23 opposition meeting in Patna, the Congress said while it would never support anything from the BJP, its culture was to take everyone along.  But the party went into silent mode after sharp opposition from its Delhi leaders, including Ajay Maken.

Arvind Kejriwal's party, meanwhile, made a "yes" from Congress about joining the battle in parliament a pre-condition for its attendance in the next opposition meet in Patna.

The last-minute hiccup was the arrest of its senior leader in AAP-ruled Punjab by the Bhagwant Mann government. Former Punjab Minister OP Soni's arrest came amid the anti-corruption campaign launched by Mr Mann.

With days to go for the beginning of the monsoon session, AAP signalled that it would not budge without a clear statement from the Congress.

When Mr Kharge dialled the AAP chief to invite him for the July 17 Opposition meet in Bengaluru, which is being hosted by the Congress, Mr Kejriwal remained non-committal, sources said.

The crunch-time came when the Congress, after a meeting on Saturday, failed to make it clear that it has okayed the opposition to the Ordinance to in parliament. A garbled message came from Jairam Ramesh, the party's communication in-charge, sources said, which got the Opposition on the edge.

That was the cue for entry of Mr Kumar and Ms Banerjee, who explained to the Congress leadership that unless there they clarified their stance, the opposition wall will end up with a Delhi-Punjab-sized hole, sources said.

As AAP dug in its heels and called a meeting of its key leaders, Mamata Banerjee frantically dialled Mr Kharge, sources said. The Bengal leader told the party to issue a clarification, which came soon from KC Venugopal.

This evening, after the meeting of its executive committee, AAP declared that it would join the Bengaluru meet on July 17-18.
"Today, the Congress party has also cleared its stand against the Ordinance of Delhi and has announced to register its protest. We welcome this announcement of the Congress party. With this, I would like to say that the Aam Aadmi Party will participate in the meeting of opposition parties to be held in Bangalore on July 17-18 under the chairmanship of Arvind Kejriwal," AAP's Raghav Chadha announced after the internal meeting.

About the Congress stand, National Conference chief Omar Abdullah tweeted: "Exactly what the Congress President had conveyed & committed to the AAP leadership when we met in Patna. The Congress was unequivocal about their stand with regard to the Ordinance."