BJP State chief Adesh Gupta campaigning with Union Minister Anurag Thakur for the MCD polls. The party’s poll debacle has also sparked speculation over change in its Delhi leadership.
| Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO
Days after the BJP faced a defeat in the civic body polls, Delhi unit president Adesh Gupta said on Friday that the party will play the role of a strong opposition at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. With this, he ended the speculation going on since results day that the BJP might attempt to wrest the Mayor’s post.
Holding his first press meet after the poll results, Mr. Gupta said the BJP will continue to raise the problems of Delhiites and also “expose” AAP if it tries to indulge in corruption at the corporation “like it has done in the Delhi government”.
Even as it became clear on Wednesday that AAP had won a clear majority, many BJP leaders had claimed that the party would succeed in winning the Mayor’s post. BJP’s national IT in-charge Amit Malviya had also hinted the same and tweeted, “Now over to electing a Mayor for Delhi… It will all depend on who can hold the numbers in a close contest, which way the nominated councillors vote etc.”
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, too, had alleged that some of AAP’s councillors were getting phone calls from BJP leaders.
In the MCD polls held on Sunday for which the results were declared on Wednesday, the BJP’s 15-year rule at the corporation was ended as it could only manage 104 seats while AAP won 134 seats.
Thanking the BJP workers and city voters for increasing the party’s vote share to “nearly 40%” from 36.08% last time, Mr. Gupta claimed the BJP has exposed AAP with its “anti-corruption campaign”. “That is why the public has rejected AAP in the Assembly segment of Manish Sisodia, a friend of the liquor mafia,” he said, adding that AAP faced the same fate in jailed Minister Satyendar Jain’s Assembly constituency.
AAP lost all three wards in Mr. Jain’s Shakur Basti constituency, and three out of four wards in Mr. Sisodia’s Patparganj.
Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, who was also present at the press meet, responded to Arvind Kejriwal’s statement in which the Delhi Chief Minister said he needed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s blessings to run the MCD. Mr. Bidhuri said that on one hand Mr. Kejriwal is seeking the PM’s blessings and, on the other hand, he has not implemented many central schemes.
Leadership ‘change’
The BJP’s poll debacle has also raised speculation over change in its Delhi leadership. Sources in the party said there had been a feeling of “negativity” against Mr. Gupta for a while, which came to the fore in a meeting of party functionaries after the results where some leaders pointed fingers at him.
“There was a point in the meeting where the president (Mr. Gupta) had to say that nobody could remove him,” said a party insider who was present at the meeting.
However, some others defended Mr. Gupta, and said the party has put up a good show in the MCD elections despite the 15-year-long anti-incumbency. “Anyway, his tenure is getting over in May. So, I think he should continue till then,” a senior party leader told Today News 24.
