BJP may project collective leadership in Delhi elections

NEW DELHI: Unable to resolve its dilemma over projection of a chief ministerial candidate ahead of the Delhi assembly polls, the BJP is considering facing the polls under a collective leadership.

The party is forming an informal working group of the Delhi BJP leaders who will work under supervision of the state’s party election in-charge Nitin Gadkari.

The strategy to get the Delhi BJP under a common platform would ensure that the message does not go that state party chief Vijay Goel would be the BJP’s CM candidate.

Though several state and central leaders of the party were wary of Goel’s way of functioning, particularly his projection of himself, some of them had reservations about a last minute change of the Delhi BJP President.

A BJP leader said the state unit can project someone else as CM candidate but should not go in for anyone’s removal from a crucial party post just two months ahead of elections.

A section of the party leadership is still pushing for projecting a face ahead of the elections. The panel, which includes Goel, Harsh Vardhan, VK Malhotra, Arti Mehra and Vijendra Gupta, would mean that the state president would not take decisions on his own.

While the working group would be an informal body, Gadkari on Sunday announced the setting up of two other panels—an Election Committee and a Core Group—putting the party in election mode.”