BJP keen on polls in Delhi, Narendra Modi asks party members to 'get cracking'

NEW DELHI: After a week of back and forth, the BJP top brass appears to have finally decided in favour of fresh elections in Delhi, a decision contrary to the suggestion of a few camps within the party to cobble together a majority by getting opposition legislators to break away.

According to sources, it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi's keenness on fresh polls that settled the matter for the Delhi state unit, which has been asked to prepare for the exercise and ensure it gets a clear majority in the 70-member assembly.

"Elections are likely to be held by December in Delhi. We have been asked to get cracking," one of the BJP MLAs confirmed to ET on condition of anonymity.

According to sources, BJP has already informally told the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung it is not keen on being invited to form a government.


The latest development will come as a relief to the Aam Aadmi Party ( AAP), which, led by its chief Arvind Kejriwal, has been pulling out all the stops to thwart BJP's alleged bid at forming a government in Delhi.

A fresh poll is the party's only hope of regaining its lost political glory after the drubbing it received in the Lok Sabha elections and failed attempts at coming back to power with Congress support. AAP has even decided that it won't contest state polls in Haryana and Maharashtra to allow it focus on Delhi.

"Over the last one-and-a-half months, we have focused all our energy on going back to the people. Arvind (Kejriwal) has galvanized volunteers and we are now ready to face elections any time," said AAP leader Manish Sisodia.

So early this week, when BJP tacitly expressed its willingness to form the government by getting MLAs to break away from the opposition, AAP was outraged outside and nervous inside.

A section within BJP was of the strong view that all efforts should be made to wean away six of the eight Congress MLAs to the NDA fold. This idea stemmed from the apprehension that a lot was at stake in case of a fresh poll because a poor performance in Delhi could jeopardise the party's prospects in other state elections. But with Congress and BJP leaving no stone unturned to keep their flock together, this became difficult.

Moreover, four of the eight Congress MLAs are Muslims and they were not in favour of joining BJP. "We suggested that they can join BJP ally SAD (Badal), but they still had issues," said a BJP leader.