Kejriwal to Niranjan Jyoti: Delhi polls won't be a cakewalk for BJP

Kejriwal to Niranjan Jyoti: Delhi polls won't be a cakewalk for BJP

Sandip Roy December 22, 2014, 09:22:00 IST

The BJP can take heart from the India Today poll that its acchey din spell didn’t end with the Lok Sabha election but with only a 3% margin over AAP it would be foolish to think it will be a cakewalk.

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Kejriwal to Niranjan Jyoti: Delhi polls won't be a cakewalk for BJP

The BJP has plenty of reasons to smile as it looks at the result of the India Today Cicero  poll in Delhi.

The party is projected to win 34-40 seats in the 70-member Assembly and so it can form the government on its own steam. After years of Congress rule, followed by those fateful 49 days of Aam Aadmi Party, the BJP is confident that it’s now it’s turn. But the poll also reveals that it won’t be entirely smooth sailing.

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Sheila badnaam hui : The last time Delhi went to the polls, Sheila Dikshit was at the helm. She suffered from a peculiar problem. Personally she was regarded as competent. Polls rated her as the best CM Delhi had. She was the one Congress leader expected to survive a nationwide Congress rout. But Dikshit was also regarded as arrogant, out-of-touch and complacent. Delhi wanted a decisive change and Kejriwal upped the stakes by risking everything and running against her. BJP candidates made her the symbol of everything that was dysfunctional about Delhi. The gamble paid off. But this time the BJP has no one to run against. Delhi has been without a CM since Kejriwal walked off the job. This election will have to be about the future of Delhi as opposed to being against any incumbent. No one has Sheila Diskhit to kick around anymore.

The Kejriwal conundrum During the Lok Sabha elections Arvind Kejriwal paid dearly for that 49-day-stint. He was hounded by cries of “Bhagoda”. The man who loves going on the offensive spent most of his campaign on the defensive trying to explain that decision to resign. It hobbled him and as the results proved, hobbled his party as well. Kejriwal’s problem was he had come to power by appearing as the man who was interested in change, not in power. But as his supporters chanted “Ab toh Sheila haari hain, ab Modi ka baari hain” he looked like a man greedy for power. And he was decisively smacked down. A chastened Kejriwal came back to Delhi, tried to hold his splintering party together. That 49-days still hurts him but as the polls show he remains the hands down favourite for CM in Delhi at 35%, way ahead of Dr. Harsh Vardhan of the BJP at 16 percent. The problem for the BJP is after having made the national polls all about Modi, it does not have another charismatic personality around whom to build the Delhi campaign and it needs one. It’s not even clear if Harsh Vardhan who just switched from Assembly to Lok Sabha wants to come back the Assembly again. And while he has a lot of respect he has never set the crowds on fire. At his own campaign rally during the Delhi Assembly he apologetically told the crowd he knew there were here to see Modi-ji, not him. Kejriwal’s advantage is he is the biggest name on the list most of whose other members are not even in the running like Sheila Dikshit. If a new name like Kiran Bedi pops into the list that can change the game. And while Kejriwal can take solace that he’s not been forsaken, he’ll have to remember that even if he is the hands down favourite as potential CM of Delhi, it means zilch if his party cannot win a majority.

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Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan. PTI

In charge by default Ever since Kejriwal walked out  Delhi has been under the Lieutenant Governor’s rule. This means, in the eyes of the aam aadmi, the government at the Centre is effectively in charge. Even five months ago the BJP could have blamed someone else for everything that’s wrong with the city whether it’s infrastructure, women’s safety or electricity woes on someone else. According to the poll the biggest election issues are corruption, women’s safety, water, price rise and electricity. As the government, the BJP will have to find answers that will satisfy the voters on all these fronts. There is noone it can blame anymore for the prices of tomatos and onions. Kejriwal will claim credit for having brought down electricity and water prices during his brief stint. His supporters claim that during those 49 days police behaved and haftas went down. The poll also shows that 67 percent believe his government behaved the way they expected it to (or better) in those 49 days. So while the BJP will hammer Kejriwal about quitting, Kejriwal will actually want to run on those 49 days as a harbinger of what can come.

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Bad apples As it goes to the polls BJP will need to ensure that its bad apples don’t upset the applecart. When a Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti goes off script it makes voters nervous. Temple building or minority pandering is not one of the top issues identified by the voters in the India Today poll. Delhi, a city that has seen its share of riots is not the back and beyond of UP and a mata ki jagaran in front of a mosque is not automatically a BJP ka jagaran. A flare up in Bawana or Trilokpuri can easily backfire especially if it looks like the BJP is in charge in the centre and unable to keep the peace in the capital itself. When BJP MLA Gugan Singh says “We have always opposed (the route of the Muharram procession) but the previous government never paid heed to our complaints” he sounds ominous. Communal disturbances in the capital under his own watch within six months of taking office should be the last thing Narendra Modi wants on his plate.

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Modi has already won During the last Assembly Delhi was sold as a trailer to the main movie. The main movie being Modi as PM. Harsh Vardhan repeatedly said Delhi was the semi-final, it was about paving the way for Modi. But now that main movie is screening in Delhi. So that argument is moot. What the BJP will have to persuasively argue is why it would be an advantage for the average Delhiite to have the same party in power in the Assembly and at the Centre. Delhi has already had a taste of that thanks to Sheila Dikshit and the UPA and most are unconvinced about what that symbiosis delivered. The BJP has to persuade voters that they will be different and that an aggressive Kejriwal would only get in the way of Delhi’s development by locking horns with the Centre.

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The BJP can take heart from the India Today poll that its acchey din spell didn’t end with the Lok Sabha election but with only a 3% margin over AAP it would be foolish to think it will be a cakewalk.

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