Hung House makes BJP consider sitting in opposition

The BJP on Sunday reached teasingly close to the half-way mark in the 70 member Assembly as it prepared to sit in the opposition with 32 seats and not approach the main rival Aam Aadmi Party for support in the hung House.

There is a strong possibility of a repoll, preceded by the President’s rule, if the BJP – the single largest party – decides not to take the next step towards government formation due to absence of a clear majority.

Lt Governor Najeeb Jung has already taken note of the hung Assembly and said he would still follow the convention of inviting the single largest party to form the government in the coming days.

As the BJP and the AAP – with 28 seats - have refused to support each other in the Assembly and the Congress – with eight seats - too appears in no position to play any role in the government formation, the possibility of a fresh Assembly election appears imminent.

There is one independent and one legislator from the Janata Dal  (United) in the new House. The existing Assembly’s tenure ends December 17 and the fresh elections, if needed, will have to be held within the next six months, close to the Lok Sabha elections in May 2014.

After the BJP’s tally fell below the expectations of a comfortable majority, the party’s Chief Ministerial candidate Harsh Vardhan said he was preparing to sit in the opposition. “We may not approach anyone to cobble a coalition to reach the half way mark of 36,” he said, underlining the party’s aversion to any form of “horse trading”.

“We under-estimated the presence of the AAP and the type of support it was enjoying,” said Harsh Vardhan who himself won from the Krishna Nagar constituency with a margin of 43,150 votes.

He said voters got attracted to the AAP as usually there is a craze for trying out a new thing.

Asked about the lessons for the BJP from the AAP show, he said: “I do not think that we have to learn any organisational lessons from the AAP as we are organisationally much stronger than the AAP.”

The BJP lost two per cent vote share in these elections as compared to the last Assembly polls. The AAP’s dream debut saw it walking away with 30 percent vote share. The Congress lost 15 per cent vote share and others’ vote share dipped by 12 per cent.

The BJP ended the counting day by sharing the honours with debutant AAP for ending the 15-year rule of the Congress whose Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit herself lost by 25,864 seats to AAP’s leader Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi seat.