As Delhi gears up for Assembly election results on Tuesday, the BJP’s strategy will be to distance Prime Minister Narendra Modi if the exit polls are proven right and the ruling party scores less than the majority mark.
The BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi has already announced that she “will take responsibility”, be it defeat or victory.
On the eve of the poll results on Monday, a BJP leader stressed on the point that the PM had addressed “only five rallies” in Delhi as compared to a number of public meetings that he had addressed for various Assembly polls held last year.
The exit polls conducted on election day by as many as seven agencies, including Nielsen, C-Voter, Cicero, News Nation, Axis APM, Today’s Chanakya and Data Mineria, showed a trend that distinctly favoured the AAP.
Although the BJP has subsequently asserted that its own internal poll shows it crossing the majority mark, the party has by and large given up hope in Delhi. The party and its ideological affiliate, the RSS, on Monday reportedly held several thanksgiving meetings for workers who were pressed into service during the elections.
The BJP’s State unit had given a lukewarm response to the party high command’s management of the polls, especially because of the projection of a rank outsider such as Bedi as chief ministerial candidate, and a number of others — such as like Krishna Tirath of the Congress and Vinod Kumar Binny of the AAP – being inducted into the party at the last minute and allotted party ticket.
In such a situation, where the party fears the worst, the BJP’s endeavour would be to shield its biggest asset, the PM, from any negative consequences or speculation.
Accordingly, party leaders have already started asserting that the PM was not really engaged in the management or campaigning during the Delhi elections.