Dwivedi’s controversial interview to Rediff.com and the Congress party officially chiding him after, could well be a reflection of a well entrenched power struggle between the party’s old guard and new guard

What he said and what he meant – whether he actually praised Narendra Modi or attributed the BJP's thumping victory and Congress’s humiliating defeat to a Bhyaratiyata ki jeet (victory of Bharatiyata) will be a matter of political debate, but the sheer timing of the his statement and consequent controversy, emanating from someone who for long has been considered a 10 Janpath insider and Sonia Gandhi’s voice on party’s official line, is bound to further damage to the Congress’s poll prospects in Delhi.

The Congress is fighting a difficult election battle in Delhi where its biggest challenge to retain its previous single digit tally of 8 seats.

Dwivedi’s controversial interview to Rediff.com and the Congress party officially chiding him after, could well be a reflection of a well entrenched power struggle between the party’s old guard and new guard – ironically between Sonia and Rahul loyalists, but its implications are manifold.

The most immediate one could be on around 12 percent Muslim voters, who have traditionally supported the Congress, but who in these elections could en bloc shift to the Aam Admi Party, barring in one or two constituencies where individual candidates like Shoeb Iqbal, Harron Yusuf and Matin Ahmed may still be able to connect with them at personal level.

Out of the eight seats that Congress managed to retain, five seats came from the areas with heavy Muslim concentration including Ballimaran, Okhla, Mustafabad, Seelampur and Chandni Chowk.

Hasan Shuja, Editor-in-chief of Sahafat, one of the most widely circulated Urdu dailies in north India says that the feedback that he was getting from the ground suggested that 80 percent of the Muslim votes would go to the AAP. He added that Dwivedi’s remarks would help only AAP consolidate its position in the community vis-à-vis Congress in the community.

Congress’s dalit face in Delhi politics, former union minister Krishna Tirath has already shocked the party by making a surprise switch to the BJP. Incidentally, the news of entry to the BJP broke when Congress’s face for Delhi election Ajay Maken was holding a press conference to highlight the `U-turns’ of AAP and BJP.

Dwivedi’s words are music to BJP’s ears and are likely to often be quoted by its leaders to counter Modi’s critics, particularly on secularist vis a vis communalist position. The influential Congress general secretary used the term `Bharatiyata’ to define Modi’s victory as against the usage of Hindutava by the secularist formations.

Bharatiyata is taken as an all inclusive philosophy, which the BJP always claims that its revered leader Deen Dayal Upadhaya used as synonym for Indian-ness and Hindutava.

No wonder the Congress high command chose Ajay Maken who is doubling up as General Secretary in-charge of Media Department (as Dwivedi’s successor) and as the newly appointed chief of campaign committee for Delhi elections to blast Dwivedi and emphasize Congress’s secularist credentials. Maken, who was a two-time MP and three-time MLA, is locked in a very a tough electoral battle in the Sadar Bazar assembly constituency. In the December 2013 polls, AAP had won from here with BJP as close second and the Congress, third. The Dwivedi controversy will only add to his personal discomfiture in these polls.

“Congress does not agree with what he said. His position is totally opposite to the thinking and ideology of Congress. How can somebody redefine ideology of Indianness, Bharatiyata and Hindustaniyat?” Maken said at a press conference at the Congress headquarters at 24 Akbar Road. Interestingly the “official” Congress briefing by him came at a time which was initially fixed by Dwivedi to clarify his position. Maken insisted that Bharatiyata was defined for Congress by Pandit Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi. He even took Swami Vivekanand’s name in the same breath. Modi and BJP have been working hard for several years to make Vivekanand a Hindutava icon.

Maken kept on stressing that the “party leadership will very soon take action” against Dwivedi. Whatever that action may mean to Dwivedi’s personal future but damage to Congress’s standing has already been done.

Modi’s supporters can safely claim him to be an icon of Bhartiyata, not a “Hindutava communalist” or a Maut ka Saudagar as Sonia Gandhi had once called him.

The AAP and BJP could not be happier with this controversy. Both BJP and AAP’s internal survey’s suggest that they are gaining in terms of vote percentage from previous assembly polls at the cost of Congress. The grand old party’s Dilli dil se, Congress pre-poll ad campaign seems to be going completely haywire.