Is BJP all set to Capture Delhi?

By Deepak Parvatiyar

October 22, 2014

The twin victories in Haryana and Maharashtra seem to have given wings to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ambitions in Delhi. The party that only till recently was averse to holding fresh elections in the city-state where the assembly has been kept in suspended animation ever since the fall of the Aam Aadmi Party government in February this year, is now prepared to take the plunge.  Reports suggest that it may now accept any offer from Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung to take a shot at the government formation in Delhi.

The Fate of Delhi Assembly to be decided after Diwali

It may be mentioned that the Delhi House is kept under suspended animation as of now. Given the constitution of the present assembly with both the BJP and the AAP having 28 members each (after a few of the BJP members became MPs), the Congress, eight, and the Shiromani Akali Dal, Janata Dal (United) and Independents, one each, the BJP would certainly have required cross-voting from the Opposition ranks to enable it form the government in Delhi. If the AAP is to be believed, the BJP had then even tried to ‘buy’ its MLAs – a charge that the BJP vehemently denied.

The AAP had also petitioned the Supreme Court challenging the non-dissolution of the Delhi Assembly. In the course of its hearing recently, the Union Government had sought time from the apex court to spell out its decision after Diwali. Indeed by then the BJP would have been sure of deciding what course it needed to take after the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly poll results were declared!

Forming Govt in Delhi has been a Dilemma for BJP

Of course, it has rather been the Shakespearean dilemma of ‘to be or not to be’ for the Bharatiya Janata Party for long in Delhi.  More often than not, it oscillated between the choice of being at the treasury or the Opposition benches in the Delhi Legislative Assembly. It has been a classic case of too near yet too far! Despite being the largest political party in the House after the state elections in Delhi, it was forced to sit in the Opposition for two reasons – it lacked the required numbers to form the government; and it needed to counter the AAP’s high moral stand on horse-trading with equal penchant.

Yet didn’t it become rather easy for the BJP to seemingly drift towards politics of compromise once the AAP failed to sustain its anti-corruption plank for long? After all, the latter did take the support of the ‘corrupt’ Congress to form the state government only to abandon it within 49 days and thereafter lost miserably in the Lok Sabha elections where it drew a blank in Delhi!

It is ironic that it was the Congress-led erstwhile United Progressive Alliance’s decision to keep the Delhi assembly under suspended animation. Yet, after the massive mandate in the last general elections, it goes without saying, that the BJP did expect to reap rich dividends of that decision and hoped the fence-sitters within the AAP to join the BJP bandwagon and vote for it in the Delhi state Assembly. This did not happen though and this indeed was a matter of consternation for the saffron brigade. So it had to buy time even as the AAP and the Congress kept demanding fresh elections in the state. The poll reversals in by-elections in 13 states too had not good to the BJP’s confidence, more so in the wake of the AAP now more focussed on rebuilding its base only in Delhi. Besides, the return of the wily former chief minister Shiela Dikshit to Delhi too was unsettling to the saffron brigade as she, despite her loss in the last state elections, remains a formidable force in state politics and could fill up the leadership vacuum that the state Congress has been facing ever since its decimation in the last assembly as well as the general elections in the state.

Maharashtra, Haryana Wins have boosted BJP’s Morale

The victory in Haryana and Maharashtra, therefore, has been just the elixir that the BJP needed to re-energise its cadres in Delhi – so essential to win elections. The twin victories have indicated that :

1. The Modi wave is still there.

2. The support for the BJP has not waned and that the reversals in the by-elections were a fluke.

The BJP further claims that it has strengthened its support base significantly since the last assembly elections. Yet the battle for Delhi is going to be an engrossing one as it would determine the political future of the AAP. Any loss here and it would rather be difficult for the party to sustain itself politically as well as financially. Donations to the party have plummeted in recent times and it’s a matter of a do or die battle for the AAP supremo, Arvind Kejriwal. At the moment, he is leaving no stone unturned and has been busy addressing numerous mohalla sabhas to give an impression that the Delhi people were not left with no one to take care of them, after he exited the government. In his media interviews, Kejriwal regrets having quit the government and now promises to focus only on Delhi’s growth for the next five years. It offers as a viable alternative and a “prominent face” (read Kejriwal) that it claims was missing in the Haryana and Maharashtra that compelled the people to vote for the BJP there. As one AAP activist said: “PM plays no part in an assembly election and this is what we will tell the people.”
The Congress on its part claims that it has “worked hard” since its defeat in the last the last Delhi elections. But does it really stand any chance to register a comeback after being wiped out from Delhi’s political firmament in both the state as well as parliament elections in the last one year?

Let’s wait and watch.