Delhi should have been a slam dunk for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Had polls for the state legislative assembly been held soon after the general elections last year, two issues should have been enough to give it victory: the Narendra Modi wave across India and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal's tarnished reputation after he abandoned the chief minister's office  after merely 49 days. Instead, the BJP dithered.

And now, with elections in the capital slated for February 7, things aren’t looking so good for the saffron outfit. Consider the direction in which the polls have been heading. In December, when ABP-Nielsen carried out opinion polls in the capital, the results suggested the BJP would get a clear majority with 45 of 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly.

By mid-January, the same pollsters put the BJP’s expected seat count at 34, making them the largest party but without a majority. Now, the most recent poll, again from ABP-Nielsen, suggests that 50% of voters will choose the AAP. Although this doesn’t give a seat breakdown, the trend is evident: AAP is in the ascendant.


Other polls don’t give the AAP quite as clear of a lead, but does suggest the two parties are neck and neck. It is this close margin that speaks loudest about the saffron party’s Delhi unit and its inability to close the deal.

Desperate times

Still, snap polls aren’t the most reliable of measures in India and, after scoring resounding victories in Maharashtra and Haryana and putting in creditable performances in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir, the benefit of the doubt has to lean the BJP’s way. Or at least that would be the case if the party wasn’t constantly shifting tactics, suggesting that it too is feeling the heat.

Consider the chronology:

*First the BJP was supposed to continue with the “Maharashtra model”, not announcing a chief ministerial candidate and having Modi as the face of the campaign, as has been the case in every election since last year’s Lok Sabha polls. This, however, meant continued jockeying between the various leaders in the Delhi BJP unit and gave Kejriwal the chance to pit himself against less impressive names.

*Deciding that this wouldn’t work, the BJP, for the first-time since Amit Shah became president, chose to declare a chief ministerial candidate and that too an outsider, former Indian Police Service officer and anti-corruption activist Kiran Bedi. While this gave the party a lot of currency among middle-class voters and also gave it a face to fight Kejriwal, it created a lot of bad blood in the BJP's Delhi unit. Leaders complained that an outsider who isn’t dedicated to the party was being picked ahead of loyalists who had spent years working for the BJP.

*As those murmurs against Bedi continued to grow, the new CM candidate proceeded to give interviews left and right, and inevitably put her foot in her mouth. She walked away from two television interviews twice, and her induction also coincided with a huge opinion poll swing in favour of the AAP ‒ and an increase in donations too.

*Meanwhile, reports appeared that the BJP had given finance and information and broadcasting minister Arun Jaitley charge of the Delhi campaign. Yes, that same Jaitley who has never won a popular election, losing embarrassingly in Amritsar despite a Modi wave across much of the country.

*Those notions were quickly dispelled as Amit Shah himself stepped into the fray taking charge. Shah has decided to go big in Delhi, deputing 120 members of parliament and legislative assemblies to appear at 250 rallies in the final phase of the campaign.

*Oh and as for Bedi after those media interactions? She got a “severe throat infection”, forcing her to cancel a number of interviews and only take out roadshows.

Best laid plans

All of this is happening in Delhi, in plain sight of the chattering classes and the nation’s most rumour-friendly press corps. This is the city, remember, that saw a rash of anonymous Twitter accounts emerge last year just to spill out the reams of gossip that gets passed around every day. The various machinations of the BJP in Delhi have, of course, not gone without comment.

Shield Modi: The current theory, as articulated by R Jagannathan, is that Bedi’s induction was a way of ensuring that any loss in Delhi will be attributed to her instead of the prime minister. Shah, according to this reading, wants to preserve Modi’s political capital at all costs, and if this means putting the Delhi blame on someone else, or even himself, so be it.

Lutyens fights back: Let those gossip accounts take the lead here.