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With just over three weks left for the elections in Delhi, the mood in the Bharatiya Janata Party Delhi unit is sombre: the party’s internal assessment suggests it is going to lose at least 23 out of 70 seats.
In fact, the situation is so serious that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is holding a meeting tomorrow to discuss how to retrieve the situation.
The BJP readily admits that at least one seat – Hari Nagar which used to be represented by Harsharan Singh Balli – was given away on a platter to the Congress when Balli was denied the BJP nomination and in a rage, joined the Congress.
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However, the party has no regrets – Balli has been hobnobbing with the Congress’s Paramjit Sarna in the politics relating to Sikh Gurudwra Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) elections and has had it coming for some time.
But top BJP leaders conceded that wrong candidate selection will hit them in a clutch of seats in the Old City as well as some resettlement colonies.
“Elections are won on the basis of three things: the party’s dedicated cadres who only vote for the party; the candidate’s personal standing; and the convergence of several factors including caste and anti-incumbency. In Delhi, there is no doubt that 20% of the BJP cadre is upset with us. But that is made up by the general sense of disgust people feel with the Congress I government. What is then left is the personal appeal of candidates. If you put up the wrong candidate in the wrong place, others will walk away with the prize. There are at least 15 places where the candidate’s personal credentials are such that they will let the party down” confided a senior BJP leader from delhi.
There are some seats, like New Delhi (where Sheila Dikshit is pitted against Vijender Gupta and Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party) that the BJP knows it will not win. The same goes for state minister for Urban Affairs and revenue, Arvinder Singh Lovely who won the Gandhinagar seat by the highest margin (31000 votes) in 2008. Similarly in the Kalkaji constituency Subhash Chopra, the BJP concedes gloomily, has held the seat already thrice and is likely to win again.
The central issues are caste and development. All other things being equal, voters would like to pick someone from their own clan to represent them. And in the BJP, the abrupt change of party management which went into the hands of Dr Harsh Vardhan from Vijay Goel, has led to chaos in the understanding of caste equations.
Among the seats the BJP says it will not win are also Mangolpuri where Rahul Gandhi addressed a rally last month;Sultanpur Majra;and Trinagar. Trinagar has a large population of Dalits who invariably vote for the Congress. The BJP is hoping that the Aam Aadmi Party whose candidate Jitendra Tomar has a good standing among Dalits can break away some of the Congress votes. Otherwise, they are reconciled to losing this seat as well.
Morale in the BJP is low, especially because the party is baffled by the guerilla tactics of the Aam Aadmi Party. And it is getting little wisdom from party seniors on how to handle this new phenomenon even though as the opposition party it has everything going for it: High power and water rates, high cost of living and the miserable conditions in resettlement colonies.
