Delhi elections: BJP troika gives little room for dissent

Delhi BJP leaders’ frustration over ticket distribution and imposition of Kiran Bedi as the CM candidate may have led to protests but there is little else they would be able to achieve in an election where party president Amit Shah and PM Narendra Modi have clamped down on the non-performing State unit.

Individual angst aside, even central leaders like LK Advani and Sushma Swaraj are helpless when confronted with the might of the troika of Modi, Shah and Arun Jaitley, which is currently taking all the important party decisions.

Swaraj has been unable to secure ticket for her favourite Shikha Rai this time. Rai had contested from Kasturba Nagar in 2013 but her claim has been brushed aside in this election.

Similarly, Advani loyalist and former mayor Arti Mehra too has been ignored in the selection of candidates for Delhi. Mehra, like former CM Sahib Singh Verma’s son Azad Singh, was lobbying for the Mehrauli seat. Old-timer VK Malhotra, also an Advani loyalist, could not secure ticket for his son AK Malhotra.

Former MP and Mayor Anita Arya wanted to contest from Patel Nagar but the BJP inducted former Congress heavyweight Krishna Tirath for the seat.

Nakul Bhardwaj, the BJP’s candidate from Patpargunj last time, was ignored in favour of Vinod Kumar Binny, who joined from the AAP.

More than anything else, the projection of Kiran Bedi as CM douses the aspirations of all top Delhi BJP leaders — Vijay Goel, Vijender Gupta, Harsh Vardhan, Satish Upadhyay, et al. Harsh Vardhan, who was the BJP’s undeclared CM candidate in the 2013 elections, has been sidelined even in the Union Cabinet. He was moved from the Health Ministry to Science and Technology in the last reshuffle.

The logic behind sidelining the State leaders is that even at the peak of Modi’s popularity last winter, these leaders were not able to crystallise the Modi wave in the Capital. The State unit needed fresh faces and the central leadership has accordingly acted.

“Some disenchantment is natural when tickets are distributed. But there is no wide-ranging dissent in Delhi. We will easily win this election under Kiran Bedi’s charismatic leadership,” BJP MP and Delhi in-charge Prabhat Jha told BusinessLine .

The RSS, which is the only appellate authority with the stature to intervene, has clearly decided not to do so.

Reports about the RSS chief not having been consulted about Bedi’s anointment were summarily dismissed by Sangh spokesperson Manmohan Vaidya.