New Delhi: A day after the BJP’s historic victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections on March 11, Prime Minister Narendra Modi marched on New Delhi’s Ashoka Road to the party headquarters as cheering crowds welcomed him. It was Modi’s style of launching the campaign for the MCD polls, said a party insider.
Thousands of posters were put up across Delhi with cutouts of the Modi-Amit Shah, along with that of Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari. After BJP had lost the 2015 Assembly polls, many analysts had said that Modi and Shah were perceived as outsiders by Delhiites.
Well, if at all that was true, tables have been turned. Modi and Shah are now seen as not only Delhi’s own but also its favourites.
According to BJP sources, before the onset of 2016 winter, Shah had set up a committee under National General Secretary Bhupendra Yadav to audit the functioning of the MCD.
“The decision to project Tiwari against the wishes of some local leaders was Shah’s call. He wanted to send the message that Poorvanchalis have equal right over the party’s Delhi unit,” said a close aide of Shah.
Two years is a long time in politics. Kejriwal, who was seen as the challenger to Modi after the landslide victory in 2015 Assembly polls, has faced the worst drubbing at the hands of Delhi’s self-confessed outsiders.
What also worked for the BJP was an almost even split of the anti-BJP votes between the Congress and the AAP, exposing cracks in the anti-BJP camp.
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