Price rise, rail fare hike make BJP nervous about Delhi assembly polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has never been stronger. It won a majority in the Lok Sabha and runs a seemingly stable government at the Centre that the country has not seen since 1984.

But the leadership of its Delhi unit is busy telling the party cadre how the BJP despite its spectacular showing in the Lok Sabha elections shouldn't risk an assembly election in the city state.

The clamour for avoiding elections has grown after Friday's Railway Ministry decision to hike railway passenger and freight rates.

Several Delhi leaders, sources say, are convinced and busy persuading others in the party to their point of view that the BJP should somehow avoid an assembly election in Delhi in the near future.

Most of BJP's 31 MLAs are said to share this view and are nervous about facing an Aam Aadmi Party which they believe is likely to show resurgence by the time elections take place after the monsoons.

Apart from railway fare increase, this section comprising the old established leadership points to rise in prices of essential commodities and the prospect of a tough monsoon as other reasons for BJP unlikely to repeat its Lok Sabha performance in Delhi.

In the Lok Sabha, the BJP won all seven seats of Delhi polling 46.4 per cent of the votes. This was a huge improvement over its 33 per cent vote share in the 2013 assembly elections. The Lok Sabha success is being attributed to the wave in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The line of argument is that Delhi election would be leader-centric rather than on the quality of party candidates.

But Modi is now at the Centre, as is BJP Delhi state president Dr. Harsh Vardhan who led the party in the 2013 assembly election. The party is yet to project a local leader as its chief ministerial candidate who could rival the popularity of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)'s Arvind Kejriwal or even Congress' Arvinder Singh Lovely.

Leaders advocating no elections line, sources said, are open to BJP forming a government in Delhi with the support of disgruntled AAP or even Congress MLAs.

However, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not in favour of BJP indulging in horse trading or engineering a split to form a quick fix government which the Sangh is convinced was unlikely to last beyond a year or two. But as BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said on Friday the party believes it can't help it if dissatisfied AAP or Congress MLAs split their own parties.

The BJP in its internal meetings has discussed the fate of Delhi BJP along with larger reshuffle that the party needs to do with nearly all of its top leaders having joined the government. Names of local leaders like Satish Upadhyay and Alok Kumar have been discussed as possible successors to Dr. Harsh Vardhan as the Delhi BJP president. Both, it is believed, will be in line with the party's effort to reach out to substantial number of voters who hail from eastern UP and Bihar.

However, neither is seen as an effective challenger to Kejriwal. One section has also backed Sanjay Kaul as a possibility given his clean image and a track record of leading anti-electricity tariff hike protests in Delhi and Gurgaon in the past.

BJP's leaders further argue that between AAP, which won 33 per cent votes in Lok Sabha elections, and Congress with its 15 per cent vote share, there were more people in Delhi that voted against BJP than for it.

According to one assessment presented in the recent party meeting, AAP and Congress could even get into a seat adjustment for the Delhi assembly election or unpopular decisions by the Modi government would ensure that AAP could yet again wreck BJP's chances.

The younger among the leadership are all for contesting an assembly election but haven't shown the necessary keenness to handle organizational issues.

"People here want to be chief ministers but not state party president knowing it to be a round the clock job," said a party leader. The younger section is emboldened by the fact that the RSS had kept away from backing the BJP in the previous assembly elections in November 2013 but was likely to support the party if assembly elections were to take place now just as it did in the Lok Sabha elections.

The word from the Sangh right now is that RSS through its 'varshik utsav' (annual programme) from late July to mid-August would try convey the message among its supporters that the new government at the Centre would need to take tough measures in the short-term and that it should be given more time to redress the ills of nearly a decade of UPA rule.

Those among Delhi BJP who do not want assembly elections believe they have a window of opportunity until then to come up with a credible plan to form the government in Delhi without facing elections.