Delhi by-election: Bawana bombshell for BJP

Amit Shah's style of functioning productively in many polls was detrimental to the BJP's interests

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) defeat in Delhi’s Bawana by-election on August 28 is perhaps a smudge on its president Amit Shah’s ledger of electoral wins and losses.

To BJP observers, the voters’ rebuff of Ved Prakash — a defector from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to the BJP who was “gifted” the ticket reportedly against the claims of more “deserving” contenders — revealed an unknown aspect of Shah’s working style: His resolve to redeem a promise made impulsively or after forethought at the peril of ignoring ground realities.

“Our workers had warned the president that Ved Prakash was unpopular