Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that the Aam Aadmi Party was set up as a ‘proxy’ in the recently concluded Gujarat Assembly elections to target the Congress. The Wayanad MP said that had AAP not been a factor in Gujarat, the grand old party would have ‘probably’ beaten the ruling BJP in the state polls.

Gandhi made the remarks while addressing the media in Jaipur during an event to mark the 100th day of the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ campaign.

Gandhi’s remarks are in line with what his party has been saying all along – that the Aam Aadmi Party is the ‘B team’ of the BJP. The Congress has said that the AAP has been working with the BJP to hurt the grand old party.

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The AAP, on the other hand maintains that the Congress had entered into a pact with the BJP to deny the party’s entry in Gujarat.

Regional parties lack national vision: Rahul Gandhi

During his Friday presser, Gandhi also said that the regional parties in India are bereft of a ‘national vision’. At best, the regional parties have local, state-specific dynamics that can’t be used for pan-India strategy.

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Apart from talking about the Gujarat poll debacle, Gandhi also spoke about Congress’ victory in Himachal Pradesh. He said that the BJP was trying to divide the country and his party fought against BJP’s money and muscle power to win the hill state.

BJP won record seats in Gujarat elections

The final tally of the Gujarat Assembly Elections is the worst-ever show by the Congress in the state. With only 17 seats, the Congress stands to lose the position of Leader of Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly. The mammoth win in Gujarat polls — BJP won 156 of 182 seats — is largely credited to the faith of voters in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and an unconventional pro-incumbency factor. Another aspect was the absence of a strong Opposition in the state, the latest Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies post-poll survey said.