The Congress leadership views the conflict between police and lawyers in Delhi with grave concern and has reacted cautiously, pointing to the failure of the home ministry to swiftly resolve the crisis instead of commenting on the tussle itself.

The party decided not to vitiate the atmosphere by taking sides, or by analysing the reasons for the face-off, and only targeted the government for its perceived incompetence that allowed such a dangerous situation to take shape. “We don’t want to politicise this sensitive issue,” a leader said, hoping that the stalemate would end sooner than later.

Congress communications chief Randeep Surjewala also restricted his comments to the purported failure of the Centre. “This is a new low in the 70 years of independent India. Is this the ‘new India’ the BJP has been telling us about? Policemen are protesting on the street and home minister Amit Shah is missing in action,” he said.

As reports suggested the lieutenant-governor of Delhi was holding a meeting to discuss the crisis, Surjewala said: “The LG does not control Delhi police; it is directly under the control of the Union home ministry. Amit Shah should come upfront and tell us how he plans to maintain law and order in the national capital. On one side policemen are beaten up, on the other side lawyers are assaulted. And now policemen are protesting, what is happening?”

Recalling that Shah had remained silent on the flare-up and his deputy, Kiren Rijiju, had deleted his tweets on the lawyer-police face-off, Surjewala said: “This is utter leadership failure.”

The Congress leader, however, avoided making any observation on the nature of the conflict, who was at fault or whether the police should have protested on the street.

Former minister of state for home, R.P.N. Singh, said: “This is an unprecedented situation. If those who are supposed to enforce law are protesting, what will happen to the common man?”

The conflict started between the lawyers and the police on Saturday over a parking tiff outside the Tis Hazari courts and snowballed into a crisis that involved vandalism, assault, arson, firing by police, ceasework by lawyers and protests by the police.

The Congress believes there was enough time for the government to anticipate the spiralling crisis and intervene before things went out of hand.

While a few former Union ministers privately argued that organised demonstrations by Delhi police was an ominous development, they insisted that the government should have intervened in time to defuse the crisis. One of them said: “Security forces and police protesting against their own leadership is the worst thing that can happen. This can acquire dangerous dimensions.”

Congress leaders pointed to the rising culture of intolerance and violence across the country, arguing that the government should have realised that good governance entails strict enforcement of the rule of law and fair delivery of justice.

“We have seen MPs hailing criminals and assassins; a police officer was lynched recently in Uttar Pradesh and there were attempts to protect the real culprits. Every government must be seen as respecting the rule of law and constitutionalism,” a senior leader told The Telegraph.