BJP’s Chances of forming government in Delhi recede Huge setback for Jagdish Mukhi, BJP’s likely Chief Ministerial candidate. The chances of a BJP government being formed in Delhi receded on Saturday after six Congress MLAs, who had earlier apparently agreed to support the NDA, held a press conference along with their two other colleagues to assert that they were not joining any he chances of a BJP government being formed in Delhi receded on Saturday after six Congress MLAs, who had earlier apparently agreed to support the NDA, held a press conference along with their two other colleagues to assert that they were not joining any political formation but were going to remain in the grand old party. The turnaround of the Congress MLAs came after news reports suggested that the RSS had serious reservations over the manner in which the BJP was proposing to form government in the national capital. The six Congress MLAs out of eight also had a meeting with party president Sonia Gandhi and assured her that they were committed to the ideology of the party and had at no time thought of switching sides. They further accused the Aam Aadmi Party of indulging in mischievous propaganda and claimed that Arvind Kejriwal and his colleagues were hand in glove with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). By persuading its MLAs to stay back, the Congress was able to do some last minute damage control. Had it not been done, it would have had wide ranging ramifications for the demoralised party which is yet to reconcile itself to its humiliating defeat in Lok Sabha elections. The fresh development has come as a huge setback for senior BJP leader Prof Jagdish Mukhi, who had emerged as his partys Chief Ministerial nominee in the capital after six out of eight Congress MLAs had agreed to extend support to a BJP-led government. Mukhi, who was the Finance and Education Minister under three Chief Ministers — Madan Lal Khurana, Sahib Singh Verma and Sushma Swaraj — is a five-time MLA and two-time Metropolitan Councillor. He is among very few MLAs who have repeatedly won from the same seat (Janakpuri) so many times. BJP may still go ahead and form the government by ensuring the absence of six or seven AAP MLAs during a confidence vote. The effective strength of the House at present is 67 and any party with the support of 34 MLAs can rule comfortably. The thinking within the BJP is that the chance to form government should not be allowed to slip. Otherwise, in a re-election, there was no guarantee of the BJP winning a majority on its own, and chances of AAP making a strong comeback were real and not imaginary. It was this belief that led to Mukhis name being cleared by the top BJP leadership sometime ago. However, the RSS seems to be having second thoughts about government formation in Delhi with the support of Congress MLAs since it will raise ethical issues. The RSS leadership has conveyed its views to BJP president Amit Shah and said that it preferred a re-election in the capital. Shah will now be taking the final call, although his predecessors Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, as also senior leader Arun Jaitley had given their opinion favouring government formation and had also got the Prime Ministers consent. The fast changing scenario has resulted in the AAP accusing the BJP of horse trading and offering huge amounts of money to engineer defections from other political parties. They had not staked their claim after the elections on the plea that the BJP had not got the mandate. What has changed now and what had prompted them to seek support from the Congress MLAs? an AAP spokesman asked on Saturday. The dilemma before the BJP is that like the Congress, its MLAs also do not want re-election. The BJP had got 32 seats in 2013 and the Congress eight, with the AAP bagging as many as 28 seats and the remaining two going to Independents. The fear is that with the power crisis and rising prices, the BJPs popularity has taken a nosedive. Similarly, the Congress had won six of its eight seats on the strength of Muslim votes the last time. This segment has moved towards AAP and the grand old party may end up without opening its account if elections were to be held, even though its leaders are claiming that they were ready to face the people once again. The overall assessment is that in case of a re-poll in Delhi, AAP may end up getting a comfortable majority, leaving the other two parties at a distant second and third. The other option before the BJP, which is in power at the Centre, is to continue with Presidents Rule and control Delhi through the Lt Governor and the bureaucracy. Sheila Dikshit ran the government for 15 years with the help of bureaucrats, so why cannot we? a BJP leader asked. But a number of top BJP leaders feel that there should be a BJP-led government in Delhi to act as a buffer between the Centre and the people of Delhi. Otherwise, every mistake or unpopular decision taken in the capital will be blamed on the Modi government. The BJP at present has 29 MLAs after three of its MLAs — Harsha Vardhan (its Chief Ministerial face), Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri were elected to Parliament. Six of the Congress MLAs, three of whom are Muslims and one Sikh had given indications that they would be very happy to switch over. One of them told The Sunday Guardian on Friday that The Congress leadership has not learnt any lessons. In any case what have we got? If polls are held, we shall all lose. Why should we not allow this House to continue for full five years? DPCC president Arvinder Singh Lovely at a press conference on Saturday denied that any of the party MLAs was going to move to the BJP. To add to the confusion, the six MLAs who have been hobnobbing with the BJP were also present. Their presence was being seen in political circles as an indication of the BJP plan of forming the government going awry. However, BJP sources said that there was going to be another twist in the tale. As part of the original deal, the Congress MLAs were not to join the BJP after quitting from their party but associate themselves with the Akali Dal, a constituent of the NDA, to enable the BJP to form government in Delhi. The deal with the Congress MLAs was brokered by senior BJP leader Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, who was once in the Congress and the Janata Dal and knows all of them at a very close and personal level. These MLAs, during their meeting with Gadkari over a month ago, had told him that they would support the BJP in case Bidhuri was made the CM. However, Gadkari after consulting some of his colleagues in the BJP and RSS ruled that out on the ground that Bidhuri was a very important leader of the party and was extremely popular in Delhi but had joined the BJP only recently. Thereafter all had agreed on Mukhis name. The reason for a general consensus on Mukhi was because the senior leader is seen as a man who has delivered in the past. As Education Minister, he had conceived the idea of Indraprastha University. The university has 112 institutions affiliated to it today. He had also enabled the opening up of 15 BEd training institutes, a remarkable achievement given that till 1993, there was only one BEd institute in the capital. Before his tenure there were only 300 engineering seats in the capital, but thanks to his initiative, there are more than 4,000 seats in various colleges affiliated with the IP University. Mukhi was also instrumental in getting lottery banned in the capital since it had destroyed many families and led to incidents of self immolation in jhuggi clusters. He subsequently convinced L.K. Advani to introduce legislation in Parliament to ban single digit lotteries all over the country. He has also twice served as Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly and is thus seen by the cadres as the man most suitable for the Chief Ministers job. Moreover Mukhi is a Punjabi and can help the BJP to resurrect its position in his community, which has always been the backbone of the saffron effort in the capital since the Jana Sangh days. Of late, the BJP had been ignoring the Punjabis and had instead promoted members of the Vaish community. His elevation could help it once again endear itself to the most dominant community of the city.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 09:00:00 +0000
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