Delhi Elections: Why Didn’t BJP Decide Earlier?

By Deepak Parvatiyar

November 7, 2014

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The very premise on which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) declined to form its government despite emerging as the single largest party in the Delhi Assembly after the November 2013 elections was that it was averse to cobbling up support for government formation.

But why couldn’t the Lotus straightaway decide in favour of fresh elections and instead procrastinated over the issue for so long?

The 2013 Assembly Verdict Placed BJP in a Dilemma

It would, indeed, be imperative to refer to the continuous flip-flops of the BJP on the issue of holding fresh election in the state but any such deliberation on the issue demands a reference to the Catch-22 situation that the party has been into ever since the fractured verdict of 2013 in Delhi.

It has been a classic case of so near yet too far, for the BJP. It had missed the magic numbers by just three. And there lay its existential dilemma!

In any other given circumstances it would have gone for staking its claim for the government formation. In the past, it did resort to such an exercise more than once, including at the Centre when it lost by a solitary vote in the show of strength in Parliament in 1999.

BJP wanted to Avoid any Taint in the Run-up to the General Elections

But not this time! Given the high decibel electioneering over corruption, any such effort to muster up support would have easily been construed as the Lotus resorting to horse-trading.

The AAP had risen phenomenally by playing up the corruption issue at the backdrop of the hugely popular Anna Andolan. The ruling Congress was projected as the symbol of political corruption and was the twin target of both the BJP as well as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). As the Congress got decimated and its numbers nosedived from 43 in 2008 to just 8 in 2013, the public sentiments on the issue of corruption did apply brakes even on the BJP’s ambitions of forming its dispensation in Delhi.

That the BJP took a high moral posturing on the issue of mustering support to form its government was a well thought out strategy under the then prevailing circumstances. After all, its claim was fraught with the risk of being construed as an outcome of backdoor negotiations and horse trading. Obviously, in view of the impending Lok Sabha elections in mid-2014, the BJP simply couldn’t have afforded such a stigma attached to its image in Delhi. Any such effort would have meant the BJP yielding political space to a buoyant AAP before the General Elections.

The BJP’s post-assembly poll public posturing was necessary not just to pay the surging AAP back in the same coin after the latter’s holier than thou attitude had fetched the ‘Broom’ rich dividends in the fray. It was necessary also to take the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance head on over the issue of corruption in the run up to the 2014 General Elections.

Hence the BJP preferred to sit in the Opposition and allowed the second-placed AAP to form the government with the outside support of the Congress – an uncomfortable alliance from the beginning that could last only 49 days. The collapse meant imposition of President’s rule in the state. It also, in the process, turned the tide in favour of the BJP in the May Parliament elections where it won all the seven seats in Delhi.

BJP’s Temptation Increased after General Elections

A BJP government at the Centre, coupled with the fact that the BJP swept the Parliament Polls in Delhi, constituted the genesis of BJP’s flip flop.

The AAP had approached the Supreme Court challenging the UPA government’s move to keep the Delhi assembly in suspended animation. After its virtual decimation in the Parliament election, the Congress too joined the AAP chorus for dissolution of the Delhi assembly and fresh elections in the national capital.

Yet, the BJP remained in the Shakespearean dilemma of to be or not to be apparently for the following two reasons –

a) The AAP, despite scoring a blank in Delhi in the Lok Sabha elections, was the number two party in the fray and had learnt its lesson well by focussing only on Delhi by launching the party’s youth and student wings and getting into a mass signature drive for an early election

b) The setback to the BJP in the by-elections just after its impressive show at the General Elections

In July, the BJP did toy with the idea of staking its claim to form its government in Delhi and its new state president, Satish Upadhyay who had replaced Dr Harsh Vardhan, spilled the beans saying that his party was “open to all options”. It was then that the AAP had cried foul and accused the BJP of luring its MLAs as the BJP would have required cross-voting from the Opposition ranks to enable it pass the floor test.

Also, the BJP had high stakes in the impending Assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra. Ostensibly, any haste to form the government in Delhi could have dampened BJP’s prospects in these two states.

BJP’s Aspirations in Delhi Revived after it Scored Well in Haryana and Maharashtra

Nothing succeeds like success. The twin victories in Haryana and Maharashtra did give a fresh lease of life to the BJP’s aspirations in Delhi. The victories ensured that the Modi wave was intact and re-energised the party cadre in Delhi. As we go to the press, the President has already dissolved the Delhi assembly. The electoral roll is in the process of being finalised and elections could take place early next year.

As the parties now ready themselves to take a shot at the fresh elections, what seems more important for the BJP despite its agonisingly late decision for the dissolution of the House is that at least, the AAP cannot accuse it of moral turpitude or political opportunism.

So, wasn’t procrastination the best policy for the Lotus to counter the Broom and the Hand as well? Let’s wait till the results.