The Hindu : New Delhi News : BJP has many reasons to think what went wrong

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Wednesday, Dec 10, 2008
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New Delhi

BJP has many reasons to think what went wrong

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

“Choice of Malhotra as the Chief Ministerial candidate appears to have demoralised senior party leaders”

He to blame?: BJP Chief Ministerial candidate V.K. Malhotra

NEW DELHI: A sense of over-confidence in the minds of drawing room politicians running the show, poor selection of candidates and disregard of local leaders for the Chief Ministerial candidate, denial of tickets to municipal councillors and a massive swing of Muslim votes away because of the presence of the Bahujan Samaj Party in the arena are being cited by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders as the main reasons for their loss in the Delhi Assembly elections.

Still licking their wounds, the party leaders are in deep introspection now over what went wrong. Ironically, the words of Chief Ministerial candidate Vijay Kumar Malhotra that the party would get a two-thirds majority are almost coming back to haunt the party, for instead of the BJP it is the Congress that has stopped just short of the magic mark. The BJP stopped at the one-third mark.

In fact, some political observers are even wondering if the Congress would have indeed secured a two-thirds majority itself had it been more judicious in the selection of its candidates and given Badarpur to Ram Singh Netaji, Tughlakabad to Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Trilokpuri to sitting MLA Brahm Pal, Sangam Vihar to Tek Chand Sharma, Mundka to Naresh Kumar and Najafgarh to Jai Kishen Sharma.

But even then the Congress has done extremely well and the BJP leaders are wondering what all they could have done right.

A senior party leader said on Tuesday that the announcement of Mr. Malhotra as the Chief Ministerial candidate appears to have demoralised senior leaders like general secretary Vijay Goel, Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan and Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Jagdish Mukhi who were all eyeing the Chief Minister’s throne. “Remember how they were all busy organising their own protests and programmes earlier? Following the announcement they appeared to have lost the enthusiasm to continue with the party work,” he added.

Another major reason for the BJP’s defeat appears to have been the role of its own councillors in ensuring the defeat of the party candidates upon being refused tickets for the Assembly elections. As one BJP leader put it, “Even three-time councillors were refused tickets and there was a general feeling that they would stagnate in the party. Therefore they either did not work for the candidates or opposed them since they did not want juniors or rank outsiders to boss over them. This is what explains the defeat of party candidates in places like Uttam Nagar, Vishwas Nagar, Vikaspuri, Seelampur, Malviya Nagar and Rohtash Nagar where the party had won all the wards in the MCD elections as recently as last year.”

While at some places BJP workers did not support the candidates, at others like Shahdara, from where Jitender Shunty of the Shiromani Akali Dal fought on the BJP symbol, there was anger at the ticket not being given to a party worker. In fact, the manner in which senior leaders were ignored in distribution of tickets and primarily Prof. Malhotra and Arun Jaitley ran the show left many dejected.

A senior leader said the BJP also made the mistake of openly declaring that the BSP would eat into Congress votes and this would benefit it. “There was no reason for stating this. This only made the Muslims vote in large numbers for the Congress. As a result, not only did prominent Congress leaders like Haroon Yusuf, Mateen Ahmed, Pervez Hashmi and Hasan Ahmed win their seats – the last two by small margins – the party on the whole ended up securing over 2 lakh more votes than the BJP,” he added.

For the BJP the results came as a big shock also because it was expecting that issues like price rise, terrorism and water and power problems would play on the minds of the people. What the party failed to comprehend was the impact the development agenda of the Congress – particularly the development works undertaken in unauthorised colonies and the process of their regularisation – would have on the electorate. As such the party was expecting the outcome of the MCD polls.

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