Delhi BJP to go to polls without a CM candidate

NEW DELHI: Clearing all speculation, BJP president Amit Shah made it clear on Sunday that party will go to polls in Delhi without a chief ministerial face. Shah was addressing a meeting of BJP booth workers at India Gandhi Indore Stadium.

“BJP will form the next government in Delhi under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi,” Shah told party workers during his address.

He also stressed on small group meetings and door-to-door campaign rather than huge rallies in order to reach out to maximum voters in the capital. “As party president, I will start this campaign by taking small group meetings and visiting families,” he added.


Giving a clear signal to party workers, Union home minister appealed to every worker to visit any household with a photo of Prime Minister Modi and BJP flag, and talk about the development works being done by the government.

Party leaders tell ET that while the election shall be fought under the leadership of Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari, a decision on who will be the CM face will be taken only after the polls.

In the past two elections, BJP had announced a CM face for Delhi before elections. In 2013, the party had declared senior Delhi leader and now Union minister Dr Harshvardhan as the CM candidate. The BJP had become the single largest party winning 31out of 70 assembly seats then. It could, however, not secure the majority to form the government.

AAP with 28 seats and Congress (8) had come together to form a government in the union territory. In 2015, former IPS officer Kiran Bedi was declared the CM candidate who contested from Krishna Nagar, a pocket borrow of Dr Harshvardhan. For the first time party lost this seat, which was won by Dr Harshvardhan since its creation in 1993. BJP had managed to win only three seats while AAP got 67 out of 70 seats.

The party feels that by announcing any name, the election becomes a contest between the leader and Arvind Kejriwal and BJP narrative of focusing around development and national issues get ignored by the voters. “It’s not been the party’s tradition to announce CM face barring one or two occasions in Delhi,” a senior BJP leader told ET.