BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday said his party fought the Delhi civic polls as a prelude to winning Assembly elections in the Capital, although they are only due in 2020.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which swept State polls in 2015, has been imploding since it lost heavily to the BJP in the recent corporation elections. The AAP won just about a fourth of the wards claimed by the BJP.

“I want to make one thing clear to every office-bearer and member of our organisation – that the victory in three Delhi municipal corporations was not our aim. It was a move to lay the foundation for a BJP victory in the Delhi Assembly elections. It is with this understanding that our party workers have fought the corporation elections. The new team [of BJP councillors] should bear this in mind every second of the day that it is their responsibility to pave the way for a BJP win in the Vidhan Sabha elections,” Shah told a gathering of the newly-elected councillors and party unit members in Delhi.

He rubbished the AAP’s contention that the BJP owed its victory to the manipulation of electronic voting machines (EVMs). Shah said that if Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal really wanted to understand the reasons for their victory, he should forget attacking EVMs and should only meet booth-level workers of the BJP.

“It does not matter how good a strategy and how strong an organisation; unless a party conquers the booth, it does not win. Our booth workers have done a tremendous job. I believe the booth worker is whom we should thank for the victory in Delhi,” said the BJP President.

He asserted that the victory was a referendum on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies and performance.

“The mandate of the national capital is the nation’s mandate. It establishes once again that the people of India are firmly with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is their stamp of approval on the Modi government’s performance,” he said.

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