BJP trusts Dr Harsh Vardhan as its chief ministerial candidate for Delhi

NEW DELHI: BJP has finally taken the plunge and named former health minister Harsh Vardhan as its chief ministerial candidate for Delhi. After much contemplation, in the face of dissent from the party’s Delhi chief Vijay Goel, the BJP leadership left it to ‘Doctor Saab’, an ENT surgeon, to nurse the feud-afflicted party unit to health in time for the December 4 assembly polls.

BJP president Rajnath Singh made the announcement after a meeting of the parliamentary board on Wednesday. “After looking at all aspects, the parliamentary board took a unanimous decision to project Harsh Vardhan as the party’s chief ministerial candidate in Delhi,” Singh told reporters amid a picture of camaraderie as Goel and Vardhan fed each other sweets in the presence of parliamentary board members.

Singh said Goel was on board the decision to project Vardhan as the chief ministerial candidate. Senior party leader LK Advani emphasised on the significance of Delhi saying “BJP’s first victory was the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat. So this city is important to us…The party has grown in national politics after it won the Delhi polls.”

After the meeting, Goel said he was not upset with the party’s decision. The Delhi BJP president, who sat next to Vardhan, had been projecting himself as the party’s face.

The BJP’s eleventh hour decision to play the Vardhan card did trigger the anticipated unrest in the Delhi unit. Goel, who had been meeting party brass to convey his reservations about it, had apparently reconciled realising the BJP leadership was in favour of Vardhan’s candidature.

Goel’s open defiance did not go down well with leaders, including the party’s PM candidate Narendra Modi. The party brass’ opinion was conveyed to Goel on Sunday when Modi was in the Capital for a meeting of BJP’s Central Election Commission to decide on candidates for the Chhattisgarh polls.

Vardhan, seen as a ‘sober face’, found acceptance in the party and the RSS. A former president of the BJP’s Delhi unit and four-time MLA, Vardhan was health minister of Delhi from 1993 to 1998.

Former PM AB Vajpayee had said about Vardhan that “he joined politics with the objective of using his medical knowledge and experience for serving the common man”.

He was elected from the Krishna Nagar constituency in east Delhi in 1993, in the state’s first legislative assembly.

He retained the seat ever since. The leadership had given him a third term as Delhi unit chief in recognition of his organisational capabilities in rebuilding BJP’s operations after the party’s defeat in the 2008 assembly elections.