Delhi was the first state which acknowledged the presence of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s predecessor Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS). In 1967, a BJS government under the leadership of Vijay Kumar Malhotra was formed. Thus, when the Bharatiya Janata Party was formed and the party started making surge under the leadership of Lal Krishna Advani, in the 1990s, it was believed that Delhi would emerge as its major citadel. Though it romped home to victory in 1993 assembly polls, it was largely due to a section of Muslim voters going with the Janata Dal following the Babri Masjid demolition.
Thereafter, it has been difficult for the BJP in the national Capital. Though its national leaders continue to inspire confidence, with the party winning all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital in 2014 and 2019, it has failed to cash on these sentiments in the Assembly polls. This largely has been due to the central leadership of the party failing to judge the situation and giving leadership to the right person at the right time. After the party was decimated in the 2003 Assembly polls forcing veterans like Madan Lal Khurana and Sahib Singh Verma out of the centre stage, it was left to a much younger Dr Harsh Vardhan to rebuild the cadres. He did that effectively wresting the corporation in 2007 from Congress and generating the required confidence to oust the Congress in 2008 assembly polls.
But the central leadership committed hara-kiri, projecting a much-older Vijay Kumar Malhotra as the chief ministerial candidate and lost hands down to a Sheila Dikshit- led Congress. Though Harsh Vardhan was pitched as CM candidate in 2013, by then a new element – the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), had entered the fray. The AAP while ensuring that BJP remained short of the requisite number of MLAs for forming government in 2013, routed it in 2015 and 2020 assembly polls despite the saffron party winning all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the general elections held just six months earlier. The only ‘sense of achievement’ for BJP in local politics has been that it has won the MCD elections three times in a row in 2007, 2012 and 2017.
While winning 2007 was attributable to a revived BJP, the 2012 victory was largely due to the anti-corruption campaign of Anna Hazare which had completely discredited the Congress. The party’s victory in the 2017 municipal polls was made possible by then BJP chief Amit Shah’s masterstroke of dropping all the sitting councillors and orchest rating last-minute defections from the Congress. While BJP did manage to win the elections, it failed to deliver on the municipal governance front. There is no denying the fact that the Arvind Kejriwal- led AAP government did try to strangle the municipal bodies financially but it’s also true that the BJP-led corporations hardly did anything to inspire confidence.
To top it all, the BJP’s central leadership has continued to thrust on the state such leaders as president who fail to connect with city’s politics. While Manoj Tiwari, Bhojpuri cine star-Lok Sabha member, proved to be no match to Arvind Kejriwal in the run-up to the assembly polls, his replacement Adesh Gupta’s tenure has been a complete non-starter.
If one needed any evidence, one could see the results of the recent municipals bypolls. In the absence of an effective counter, the AAP government in the city has been having a relentless run and one should not be surprised if they romp home in the 2022 municipal polls. BJP, to be effective in the local politics of Delhi, need to have such leaders who can connect with the city’s politics and inspire the confidence of the voters. This doesn’t seem to be happening for now.
SIDHARTH MISHRA
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice