NEW DELHI: With its bid to end its exile from the national capital since losing to the Congress in 1998, ending in failure, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will wage a prestige battle in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
While it has held on to the reins of the three municipalities for 15 years now, the Assembly has turned out to be a tough nut to crack. Riding on a massive ‘Modi wave’, the saffron party swept most parts of India in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and formed the government at the Centre.
However, the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi couldn’t turn its fortune in the Assembly polls in 2015, as the BJP was decimated by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The latter bagged 67 of the 70 Assembly seats in a rout that threatened to push the BJP to the margins of Delhi’s political landscape.
Only three of the BJP’s experienced poll campaigners managed to get the better of their AAP rivals, most of whom were greenhorns or electoral rookies.
In the 2013 Assembly polls, the BJP bagged 31 seats, falling just four short of the majority mark and failing to form the government. Union minister Prakash Javadekar, who is also the BJP’s in-charge for the Delhi polls, said on Monday that the announcement of the election date marks the end of the party’s long spell out of power in Delhi, as it is poised to form a ‘Triple Engine Government’ in the city after taking the reins of the MCDs and winning the general elections.
“The BJP will add a new dimension to Delhi’s development, as the tenure of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is about to come to an end. He had put a lot of obstacles in the city’s path to progress,” Javadekar said.
Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari claimed that the BJP would win 55 seats, as the poll battle will come down to a contest between a tried and tested performer and a party, which had only made excuses and spread falsehood.
Party sets its poll hopes on colonies, CAA
To counter freebies offered by ruling AAP such as free power up to 200 units, water, travel for women in DTC buses and a raft of welfare schemes, the party is going to rely heavily on the Centre’s nod to give ownership status to residents of unauthorised colonies and the amended citizenship amendment law