Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal offers prayers at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Most pre-election surveys in Punjab have predicted a big win for AAP. Pic/AFP

During the past week, the Congress Party and the Akali Dal, the BJP’s coalition partner, have been dumping on their common enemy, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose Aam Aadmi Party threatens to snatch the Punjab Assembly election from them in a few months. They have not gone as far as formally joining one another (but if the Congress continues its downward spiral, then anything is possible in the 2020s). But state Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh and the Akali’s deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal are so unnerved at the prospect of losing to a political interloper that they’ve become as one in repeated political attacks on Kejriwal. Their dislike for the anti-corruption crusader-turned-CM is not unique; every diehard supporter of both the BJP and the Congress seems to have a personal hatred for Kejriwal. The Congress because AAP is eating them alive; the BJP because he is likely to be an obstacle to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s return in 2019.