MUST-WIN FOR BJP IN DELHI POLLS

Having failed to perform satisfactorily in the Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand elections, the BJP realizes that its rank and file will be hugely demoralized if it does not fare well in the forthcoming Delhi polls.

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It’s a must-win situation, therefore, for the party if only because a disappointing show will have an unfavourable impact for its prospects in the Bihar elections which are eight or nine months away.

Moreover, a below-par performance in Delhi will reflect poorly on the BJP’s sole winning card – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image – since he, along with the Union home minister, Amit Shah, have been virtually the only campaigners in the absence of a chief ministerial face for the party.

Such a lacuna is all the more disadvantageous for the BJP since its main challenger, the Aam Admi Party (AAP), banks heavily on the “achievements” of its chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, in the fields of health and education, especially for the poor and the lower middle class. Since Kejriwal and his lieutenant, deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia, are effective communicators (unlike most of the representatives of the other major non-BJP party in the fray, the Congress), there is a perception that the AAP is the front-runner in the Union territory where the BJP last won an assembly election way back in 1993.