Kejriwal is less confronting because he has put BJP on backfoot: Prabhu Chawla

In an interview to ET Now, Prabhu Chawla, Editorial Director at The New Indian Express Group, decrypts the Kejriwal factor in the Delhi election and the impact on BJP's top leadership if AAP wins



ET Now: Are you seeing a more mature Arvind Kejriwal? Will we see an able administrator if AAP were to form the next government?

Prabhu Chawla: Any new political leader is like him. When he fought elections, he was a mercurial, a very aggressive political leader. He used to think that everybody was dishonest except him. But he has realised that politics is a game of reality and of compromises where you have to forget your ideology sometimes.

You have to compromise and he is trying to be more mellower than he was earlier. This could be a strategy because Delhi is a society of middle-class people, where traders play very important role in the final outcome of elections.

Moreover, he would have thought that he has to capture not only the Congress space but also the vote bank of BJP: Middle-class Punjabis or refugees.

All this will come only when you compromise.

Strategically, he is much more mellowed, accommodating and reconciliatory.

He has let go of the confronting image because he has to put BJP on the defensive.

ET Now: How big a setback could this be for the prime minister and his chief strategist Amit Shah? You mentioned a point that PM's personal popularity is still intact but what will happen if the party loses Delhi?



Prabhu Chawla: BJP's internal politics is very filthy. They have not been able to create a leader in Delhi for the last two decades.

They kept losing elections against the Congress for 15-odd years.

They lost last year (in general elections) too. The Delhi BJP has not been able to throw up its own leadership. BJP would not like any local leader to emerge therefore they put a person like Kiran Bedi there.

I am trying to say that there was some element who did not allow Rajnath to succeed as BJP president.

There are certain elements who don't like Gadkari to succeed as president.

They will be trying to find some kind of scapegoat in Amit Shah, but Prime Minister Modi has called him the most successful president the BJP has ever had. I think there is jealousy among certain BJP leaders, central leaders of Delhi who do not like Amit Shah's style of functioning because he is a much more organised person.

He knows how to win an election.

He knows how to control the cadre but somehow the Delhi BJP has not been able to understand him. Therefore, they will try to blame Amit Shah that he has failed in Delhi and that is what they would like to do. You cannot write off Amit Shah.