BJP sweeps Delhi MC polls

Party beats incumbency to deal blow to Kejriwal’s AAP; resignations flood Congress

NEW DELHI: The BJP retained power in the city’s three municipalities for a third consecutive term on Wednesday, in what was an overwhelming rejection of the Aam Aadmi Party just two years after it won a brute majority in the Delhi assembly elections.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity as well as a decision to drop most of its sitting councillors helped the BJP buck anti-incumbency and tighten its grip over the civic bodies it first won 10 years ago.

The elections carry wider national ramifications. An emphatic victory only adds to the BJP’s image of invincibility and leaves a divided Opposition further demoralised in the run-up to the national polls in 2019.

But the setback was the worst for AAP chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.

With the verdict seen as a referendum on his government, the polls were a matter of prestige for him. The defeat called into question his ability to win elections after the AAP’s loss in Goa and Punjab polls last month.

A split in the opposition votes helped the BJP, which saw a marginal drop in vote share over 2012. The combined share of the AAP (26.21%) and Congress (21.09%) was more than that of the BJP’s (36.08%).

The AAP also failed to hold on to its supporters among Purvanchalis and minorities.

For the BJP the victory was sweet revenge for its loss to the AAP in 2015 Delhi polls when the latter won 67 of 70 seats.

“Modi charisma helped the BJP to beat anti-incumbency. The triangular contest proved crucial in the victory margin… In a triangular contest, any party that gets over 36% emerges victorious,” said Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

The Congress ended up third in the civic polls but made a sizeable gain in its vote share compared to its performance in the 2015 assembly elections.

CHANDIGARH: Daggers are out in the Punjab unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) following party’s drubbing in the municipal corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls with state leaders slamming the central leadership and asking it to “introspect” instead of covering up the failures.

The party had earlier lost assembly polls in Goa and Punjab and also suffered a defeat in the Rajouri Garden (New Delhi) bypoll. Party’s state leaders, who were blaming the Delhi leadership for Punjab poll drubbing in a hush-hush manner till now, came out in the open on Wednesday, saying the party committed the “biggest blunder” by not naming a chief ministerial candidate.

“If we have announced the CM face before the polls, the political scape in the state would have been different,” party’s Dhaka MLA and Punjab leader of opposition HS Phoolka said. He, however, refused to comment on the party’s defeat in Delhi MC polls, but was vocal about its “poor” poll strategy in Punjab.

He hoped that the party would discuss the real issues that led to its defeat in Punjab and Delhi municipal polls. “The party needs to introspect. We will discuss all these issues,” said Phoolka.

“There were many leaders from other parties who wanted to join the AAP, including Navjot Singh Sidhu, Jagmeet Brar, Manpreet Singh Badal, Manish Tewari and Pargat Singh, but their entry was scuttled. Imagine if they all have been with us, things would have been different,” said Phoolka, who said he met AAP convener and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal twice after the Punjab poll debacle, but it never came up for discussion.

Talking to HT, party’s chief whip Sukhpal Singh Khaira said Punjab leaders should be given a free hand keeping in view the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. “We should not repeat the mistakes committed during the Punjab elections and the MCD polls,” said Khaira.

Of all AAP leaders in Punjab, Khaira had been vocal against the central leadership after the assembly poll results. “The ticket distribution was flawed and there was over indulgence of Delhi leaders,” he said.

Party’s Punjab convener Gurpreet Singh Ghuggi said the central leadership failed miserably to make a contact with party activists at the ground level.

AAP’s Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, who was on the forefront of the party’s election campaign in Punjab, had earlier said that party contested the state polls without a captain and there was no one to take the responsibility. He said the party should look within to find out the reasons which stopped its march to power in Punjab.

Contrary to Kejriwal’s stand, Mann said there was no use in finding fault with the electronic voting machines (EVMs). He also slammed the party leadership for behaving like a mohalla cricket team. Mann, who lost to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal from the Jalalabad seat in the assembly elections, said overconfidence of some central leaders spoiled the AAP’s poll prospects in Punjab.

The party’s leadership could expect more acrimony in the days to come as AAP’s NRI leaders from Canada and the US rejected central leaders Sanjay Singh and Durgesh Pathak alleging that they ran Punjab not with the will of partnership but with discriminating attitude towards the volunteers and local leaders. They also wrote to Kejriwal in March, asking him to respond by May 9, after the Delhi municipal polls. (WITH PTI INPUTS)