Delhi BJP pushes party leadership to form govt in Capital

Displaying a curious lack of confidence in facing fresh elections, legislators in the Delhi unit of the BJP are desperately pushing the central leadership to support their efforts to form a government in the Capital. Delhi is under President’s rule since February and the Assembly is in suspended animation.

However, it was not clear whether BJP President Amit Shah or Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is scheduled to come back from the BRICS summit today, approve of these desperate measures.

The BJP’s former chief ministerial candidate Harsh Vardhan, now a Minister at the Centre, officially favours fresh elections. And for the BJP, which stood its ground and refused to use “unfair means” to make up for the numbers it did not get in the Assembly polls held in December, cobbling together splinter groups from the Congress now would not exactly constitute ethical conduct. Off the record, BJP MLAs have been talking of weaning away six of the Congress’ eight MLAs to forge a majority in the Delhi Assembly.

The BJP had emerged the single largest party with 32 seats, including one of the Akali Dal, in the 70-member Assembly. But it refused to form the government saying it did not have the numbers and will not resort to horse-trading to stake its claim.

The AAP, with 28 MLAs, formed the government with the support of eight Congress MLAs but Arvind Kejriwal later quit and the Assembly has been in suspended animation since then.

Meanwhile, the BJP’s number has come down to 28 after three MLAs — Harsh Vardhan, Ramesh Bidhuri and Parvesh Verma — were elected to the Lok Sabha.

The strength of the Assembly also went down to 67 and the simple majority mark is now 34. If the BJP manages to get the support of the Congress’ six MLAs, which will also constitute a two-third split in the party, it can cross the simple majority mark.

With veteran Jagdish Mukhi being touted as the CM candidate, the BJP’s Delhi unit is pushing for the formation of a government at a time when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has promised a very generous ₹700 crore for reforms in the Capital’s power and water sectors.

Delhi’s budget is expected to be presented in Parliament on Friday and, technically, the Union Government has enough time to showcase its commitment to Delhi voters in the elections. Unlike other States, President’s Rule in Delhi is for the duration of one whole year and the BJP has time till next February to firm up its position.

Moreover, with an adversary as vocal as Kejriwal, the party can hardly afford the political cost of forming a government by splitting another party.

Kejriwal, on his part, has already accused the BJP of displaying a “blatant indulgence in horse-trading” while simultaneously mounting a sharp offensive on Lt Governor Najeeb Jung.

AAP leaders had met the Lt Governor on July 3 to demand fresh elections and made another attempt to meet him on Thursday. Jung, however, did not oblige, leading Kejriwal to conclude that he too was “promoting” horse-trading.

“Would LG encourage horse-trading if he invites a party to form government despite knowing that they don’t have the numbers? Can the LG invite a party to form government without prima facie satisfying himself whether the party has numbers?” Kejriwal tweeted.

The AAP leader alleged that the Lt Governor is likely to invite the BJP to form the government because “after taking oath, it would become easier to buy MLAs”. The AAP leader is further quoting a price of ₹20 crore that the BJP is allegedly offering to MLAs to defect.

Senior BJP leaders and ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari rejected these allegations with the former insisting that the BJP “would never indulge in horse-trading”.

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