Defeat in MCD polls may trigger churn in Delhi BJP brass

NEW DELHI: The BJP’s electoral defeat in the recently concluded Municipal Corporation of Delhi election is being attributed to multiple factors on the ground that did not work in favour of the party. Party sources indicated that this loss could result in a churn within the leadership of the BJP’s state unit in the coming months.
Sources in the Delhi BJP also hinted that state unit president Adesh Gupta could soon be removed from the post of Delhi BJP President in the coming months as he has not been able to deliver expected results for the party. Adesh Gupta, who hails from the Patel Nagar Assembly constituency in Delhi, has not been able to deliver any of the four wards that falls within his constituency. The BJP lost the East Patel Nagar, West Patel Nagar, Baljeet Nagar as well as the Ranjeet Nagar ward to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which falls under the Patel Nagar assembly constituency.
Sources within the Delhi BJP also said that the Gupta has not been able to take along the entire party leadership in the state and that several differences that existed within the BJP unit in Delhi were left unattended for months and that was one of the key reasons that the BJP performed weakly in the MCD elections.
One senior BJP leader also said that the state president was unable to even bring all the MPs from Delhi on the same page during the ticket distribution and according to reports from within the BJP, some of the candidates were given tickets only because of their closeness to Gupta and not according to their winability. “It is not unknown that the Delhi BJP has several differences within a set of senior leaders of the party, but during election all should work together as a team and it is the responsibility of the party chief and from the result it seems he was not able to do so. The party went to elections with some senior leaders sulking. The Delhi BJP president releases a list of district presidents without consulting others, which he was forced to take down the same day. The MPs and the state president don’t get along. All MPs were working on their own, the workers were confused about whose order they should take,” the senior BJP leader quoted above told this newspaper.
Gupta was elected as the Delhi BJP chief in June 2020 and his official term is to end in June 2023, but as per sources, he may not last his entire term as the Central BJP leadership is also unhappy with his leadership as the party expected a fourth term in the MCD, which did not happen. The source also indicated that few names for the new leadership of the BJP are already doing the rounds and that possibly by the beginning of next year, a new leadership would be announced for Delhi.
The unexpected results for the BJP are also being attributed to the lack of last mile effort by the workers who failed to bring as many voters as possible from the societies of Delhi to the polling booth. Delhi saw an abysmal turnout of just 50% on the polling day, with most affluent societies and localities of Delhi registering less than 40% turnout.
Many BJP leaders also feel that unlike in 2015, the BJP did not change all the sitting municipal councillors of the party to arrest the anti-incumbency and said that this could also possibly be one of the reasons for the poor performance of the party. Many also believe that the tussle between the AAP and the BJP in MCD which hampered the work like sanitation and garbage cleaning could also be one of the reasons that the people of Delhi wanted both the authorities of Delhi to be ruled by the AAP, expecting smooth performance.
However, the seat share of the BJP has not been as bad as was expected through multiple exit polls and the party has been able to maintain 104 out of the 150 seats in the 250 wards MCD. The AAP, on the other hand, was able to have 134 wards into its kitty.
The BJP’s day was saved by two MPs–Gautam Gambhir and Manoj Tiwari who represent the East Delhi and the North East Delhi parliamentary constituencies respectively. In the East Delhi seat of Gautam Gambhir, the BJP won 21 of the 36 wards, while in Tiwari’s North East Delhi the BJP won 21 of the 41 wards.
In the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha seat represented by BJP MP Dr Harsh Vardhan, BJP won 16 of the 30 wards, while West Delhi seat represented by BJP MP Pravesh Verma saw BJP winning 12 of the 38 wards. In the South Delhi Lok Sabha seat represented by BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri, the BJP won 13 of the 37 wards, the North West Delhi Lok Sabha seat represented by BJP MP Hansraj Hans saw BJP win in 17 of the 43 wards and the New Delhi constituency represented by Union Minister and BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi saw the BJP win just six of the 25 wards.