JOIN USArrogance, projecting outsider Kiran Bedi as the chief ministerial candidate, over centralisation of poll management, internal bickerings and the Centre’s failure to fulfil people’s aspirations put brakes on the Modi-Shah juggernaut.
The Delhi poll disaster has lent voice to muted rumblings within the Sangh Parivar, with BJP leaders privately conceding that the top leadership’s unwarranted aggressive stand forcing decisions on the organisation has had a ripple effect here now and elsewhere before. Adding insult to injury, senior RSS functionary M G Vaidya said: “This should not be seen as AAP’s victory but a win for anti-BJPism. And the face of this is the AAP.”
BJP parliamentarian from Darbhanga (Bihar) Kirti Azad told a news channel that those who were in charge of campaigning and those who took major decisions should be questioned and accountability should be fixed. A senior BJP leader summed up the mood among a section of the party when he dubbed the humiliating loss a “defeat of arrogance that brought disgrace along”.
What the BJP leader could not say on record was stated by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The BJP’s “balloon has burst” due to “arrogance and political vendetta,” Mamata, who is facing heat due to the saffron party making inroads into the state, told reporters.
Former Team Anna member Kiran Bedi, who lost despite being inducted and instantly projected as the party’s poll mascot, embarrassed the BJP by saying, “It is not my defeat, it is defeat of the BJP.”
Her husband Brij Bedi, too, did not spare the BJP which brought her without consulting other internal stakeholders. “If she (Bedi) was fully supported, then why could she not win,” he asked.
“We will look into why we lost overwhelmingly. We have lost and we accept it with humility. But the BJP is resilient,” Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, while congratulating AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal for his emphatic victory.
The fear among the BJP leaders is that if the party fails to draw lessons, it might have a bearing on its poll prospects in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.