Delhi BJP in-charge Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda says the AAP is all about 2% investment for public work and 98% for advertisement.
NEW DELHI: In an exclusive conversation with The Sunday Guardian, BJP National Vice President and Delhi BJP in-charge Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of “fakery” and said that the AAP’s lies have been exposed. He exuded confidence that the BJP would win the MCD elections that are due in Delhi on the 4 December. Edited excerpts:
Q: How have you been handling the role assigned to you as the in-charge of the BJP in Delhi?
A: BJP is the world’s largest political party. It is a well-oiled, large, and focused, very energetic and passionate machine that makes my job very easy. So far as my role is concerned, a strategy has been formed at our senior levels and I have been part and parcel of helping to shape that strategy and we have formed election committees with senior leaders in the Delhi BJP to run different parts of the campaign. We have formed 27 different committees, we have a war room, a large call centre; we have massive mobilisation on the ground. My job is to stay involved in all of this, help facilitate the Delhi BJP team and make sure that the strategy gets implemented properly on the ground. One example is last Sunday, we had an unprecedented spectacle in Delhi where we held 14 road shows simultaneously. The enthusiasm among the workers is phenomenal.
The team is working very well. Prime Minister’s immense popularity, Amit Shahji’s out-of-the-box strategic thinking and Naddaji’s leadership is going to ensure that we win this election.
Q: The BJP has been in power for 15 years due to which it has attracted massive anti-incumbency on the ground; there are issues with garbage, cleaning of drains, funds, etc. How does the party plan to overcome this?
A: Let me correct the perception about anti-incumbency against the BJP. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been in power in the state for eight years and they in fact have much more serious anti-incumbency. They have been saying every year that their government will be cleaning the Yamuna River in two years, they will be solving the issue of air pollution, but the Yamuna still remains dirty and Delhi’s air has gone worse.
They even have a government in Punjab now, which is responsible to stop the stubble burning that turns Delhi’s air toxic every year. But they have failed in every aspect. Look at their ministers who are getting caught every now and then on the issue of corruption. Huge money has been collected by AAP leaders in the liquor scam and money trails are being found. Black listed companies were awarded contracts for liquor vends, liquor vends tripled in Delhi and permissions were given by the AAP government to open them in front of schools, temples and Gurudwaras. Their other Minister is in jail for money laundering and we have all seen the video of how VVIP treatment is being given to him inside the jail. He gets massages and spa from a child rapist, and the party says that’s physiotherapy. Their lies are being caught pants down now. People of Delhi are fed up with dirty water, the Delhi government has not been conducting an audit of the Delhi Jal Board, which is under them. The party which was formed on the premise of anti-corruption is neck deep in corruption now. They are good in only one thing, advertisement and marketing. The AAP is all about 2% investment for public work and 98% for advertisement.
They tried to make an issue of the garbage problem, but the reality is that the AAP government sat on Rs 43,000 crore of central money not releasing it for things like garbage cleaning. Despite that, the Delhi BJP in the MCD has made immense investments in automation and mechanization of garbage removal. A lot of work has been done, more is being done. The Modi government has invested immensely in several very large-scale biodiversity Eco Parks of international standards. During the Covid-19 and lockdown, 73 lakh people of Delhi had got free rations from the Modi government, a very large number of these people would have starved.
Q: You mentioned about AAP Minister Satyendra Jain’s video from the jail, I am also told that several other such videos could be out in the run up to the elections. How do you think such videos would impact voters and help them vote in your favour?
A: This is the same Minister, who is getting a massage from a child rapist in jail, and his party demanded that he should be given a Bharat Ratna. The question is why has the AAP not sacked him yet? I can tell you, the citizens of Delhi, irrespective of their economic status, or which part of the city they live in, irrespective of their professional status will not stand with someone who is seen mixing around and fraternizing with a child rapist. Not just about this person, you can see the many sting operations that are coming out where AAP leaders are seen making monetary deals for tickets, their MLAs are openly threatening voters that if they don’t vote for AAP, their drains will not be cleaned for the next five years. These videos are having an impact, because the people of Delhi are realising that they had been sold a dummy, a different image of the party, which gives freebies, but then we have seen in Sri Lanka what freebies do.
Q: The AAP is alleging that the BJP is deliberately leaking this video during election time as they have no issue to talk about governance. They are also questioning how the BJP is getting hold of these videos?
A: This is another typical obfuscation tactic by the AAP. Instead of responding to the query on how the Minister is getting a massage from a child rapist and getting five-star facilities in Tihar, they are asking how this video came out in the first place. There is a lot of frustration among the AAP people and it is their own people who are sourcing these videos from different places and putting them out to expose the fraudulent party.
Q: You spoke about infighting within the AAP, but we have seen similar infighting within the Delhi BJP. More often than not, the BJP MPs and the State President are not on the same page. We have seen reports about scuffles during ticket distribution in the BJP, where the Central BJP leaders had to step in to resolve the issue. What do you have to say about this?
A: Firstly, this is not true at all. When you say Central BJP leadership that’s me also. I am the National Vice President of the BJP, I am Prabhari of Delhi and yes, I was involved in part of the team and in turn in the process, helping to select tickets. This is the only party that gives opportunity to everyone, look at the Prime Minister, he comes from a humble background and today he is the most popular leader in the world. We have an absolutely transparent and fair ticket distribution and selection process.
Let me tell you how tickets are given in BJP, first we took feedback from our ward level workers, then we took feedback from our district office bearers, then from our elected representatives like that of the MLAs, the MPs, our state leadership. We also conduct independent and thorough professional surveys to understand the reality. These were factors that went into choosing the best candidate. Yes, people speak passionately when we have meetings and we have had long meetings where people spoke passionately, discussing who is a good candidate. Speaking passionately is not a crime. We have had the least number of people who have stood as rebel candidates in the history of the party. There is almost uniform acceptance that ticket distribution was done fairly and efficiently. I think we have done a good job and we are very satisfied.
Q: But then, you had to suspend 11 of your leaders from Delhi for rebelling against the party, the state president declared a list of district presidents and had to recall the names within hours, and a new set of names was announced later. This somewhere shows that all is not well within the Delhi BJP?
A: Let me explain, when an election is taking place, it is a chaotic situation, so coordination is a big challenge. We have this one man one post policy in the party, and some of those who had to be recalled were given tickets so they could not hold the party post. Since we were going around in different meetings, there was a coordination problem and some inadvertent errors took place which were corrected within a day. This is a routine process that’s nothing big to be made of. Eleven in the party out of lakhs of karyakartas is a very small number and they are not material people. So that’s not a big deal.
Q: Opposition parties in Delhi are saying that for a local election like that of the municipal corporation, the BJP is carpet-bombing Delhi with a slew of Union Ministers, Chief Ministers from various states and even having to rope in the Union Home Minister and the national party president to campaign for the party. Does this not show that the Delhi BJP is in a weaker position in this election?
A: (With a hearty laugh) We have a lot of big guns and that is why the opposition is panicking since they have only one gun and making irrelevant noises like that. If you look at the BJP’s history, at every election, we roll out with full steam and there are no elections that we take lightly, whether it is a local, national or state election. The opposition is panicking since their only gun they had has been exposed and some of their smaller ones are in jail and some are scared as their own aide has decided to turn approver in the court.
Q: Your critics and even political analysts today say that one of the biggest problems with the Delhi BJP is that there is lack of a credible face within the party in the city, like we saw in Sushma Swaraj, Madanlal Khurana and that of Sahib Singh Verma to counter someone like Arvind Kejriwal or for that matter Sheila Dixit? How do you respond to this observation?
A: Is Arvind Kejriwal from Delhi? Your readers must be given that answer and the fact is that he is not. Secondly, we do have a lot of leaders, we have very senior leaders like Dr Harshvardhan, we have young dynamic leaders and very famous faces amongst our MPs, we have women leaders. Look at our MLAs and also our party office bearers, some of whom are contesting elections this time. This is the same old “gissa pitta” argument that they gave, like after Atal ji, who? Where did Modiji come from, he came from the ranks of the party and succeeded at different levels and today he is the most popular leader in the world. We have multiple options and at the right time, we will choose the right person.
Q: Throughout our conversion, you have not mentioned the Congress even once, so have you written off the Congress totally as far as this election is concerned?
A: Well, I think the Congress is of course struggling as you know and it is not just us, but also the people seem to be not taking the Congress so seriously. However, even as a minor party, which they have become, they are trying and the local unit is trying. They are in fact a little luckier this time that some of their national leadership is not available as they are walking all over the country and that may be a boon to them since they will be unable to come and destroy the local Congress here.