Days after the announcement of Delhi Assembly poll results, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) Delhi unit leaders were asked to come out with convincing reasons that led to the humiliating loss. All the Delhi BJP leaders, mayors and councillors were present in the brainstorming session held on Thursday eveing.
Winning Delhi Assembly polls has remained a mirage for the BJP ever since it lost to Sheila Dikshit-led Congress in 1998. The BJP has launched an all out campaign to wrest power from the Aadmi Aadmi Party (AAP) but the results exposed ‘the hollowness of the campaign as AAP ran away with 62 seats out 70. BJP's only solace was its number that rose to eight from three MLAs and its share of votes increased from 32 to 38 per cent.
According to sources in BJP, the factor that played crucial role in downfall of the party was the hate speeches. Delhi unit leaders failed in countering Kejriwal's freebies narrative.
"The party failed in handling the issues such as the AAP Government's freebies and the anti-citizenship law protest at Shaheen Bagh," said a BJP insider.
In a series of meetings with its party workers, seniors leaders also questioned about the membership drive that had taken place in Delhi prior to the assembly polls. As per BJP records - 18 lakh new members were said to have joined the BJP but that did not translate into votes.
The review meetings were attended by Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari, national general secretaries Arun Singh and Anil Jain and Delhi unit organisation secretary Siddharthan where councilors, workers and local leaders also present while it is pertinent to mention here that Central Election Committee (CEC), this time gave four tickets to four councilors while not even one of them managed to win the seat.
A party insider also said that councilors present in the meeting were asked to submit their reports and assessment also. If sources are to be believed, BJP leaders ruling the municipal corporations failed to make any impression with MCD workers . Voting patterns reflected that AAP got support from all the quarters while BJP failed to do so and that led to its demoralizing loss in the just concluded Delhi polls.
Adding further, BJP workers were also dismayed with the participation of the senior leaders from other states and the ground level workers spent more time in greeting and serving the leaders and it impacted their door to door campaigning.
Party workers also said that the presences of local Members of Parliament (MPs) were also missed on ground. Naming few Hans Raj Hans, Dr Harshvardhan and Gautam Gambhir, workers asserted poor coordination with leadership also one factor in losing battle against AAP whereas AAP workers got plenty of time to convey to the people about the welfare measures of the Arvind Kejriwal government during their intense door to door campaign.
