BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi wanted to contest from the Greater Kailash constituency, but BJP chief Amit Shah got the party’s parliamentary board — which includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi — to field her from Krishna Nagar, considered to be a BJP-RSS stronghold. READ: At Rs 16 cr, Maken ‘richer’ than Bedi and Kejriwal Giving the inside account behind this decision, a BJP insider told Newsline, “No. 1 and 2 were very clear that Bedi should win and they did not want to take any chances.” No. 1 and 2 are used by party functionaries for Modi and Shah respectively, in the party’s newly-formed parlance. READ: Maken ready for debate, but Bedi still holds out on AAP According to sources, when the party on Monday night began its meeting to finalise the list of 70 candidates for Delhi Assembly elections, a list of probables was tabled with the names of the constituencies. While 69 constituencies had two or more probable candidates, Greater Kailash had only Kiran Bedi’s name. The parliamentary board members were told that the latest entrant to the party wanted to contest from that constituency, since she thought her appeal to the middle-class and upper middle-class in the area will give her an edge over others. READ: In his backyard, Harsh Vardhan holds debutant Bedi’s hand Shah is learnt to have disagreed, as he told his colleagues that it is not a safe seat since there are two strong contenders — President Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee from Congress and Saurabh Bhardwaj from AAP. Bhardwaj had defeated BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra’s son Ajay Malhotra by 13,092 votes in the last elections. The discussion then moved to the next option and Bedi’s name was among the five probable candidates for Malviya Nagar. Once again, Shah interrupted by saying that Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate Somnath Bharti was a strong candidate. This led to some discussion among the members about the possible “safe” seat for Bedi, who was going to be the party’s chief ministerial face. Shah and Modi conferred with each other and decided that she should be fielded from the Krishna Nagar constituency. A phone call was made to Kiran Bedi from the closed-door meeting at the party headquarters on Ashoka Road and Shah informed her about the Krishna Nagar seat. She was told that Krishna Nagar has been an RSS stronghold for several decades and the BJP has never lost elections from the East Delhi constituency. She agreed to contest from Krishna Nagar seat. She was told to prepare for the nomination filing. Sources said that the board members — comprising of top Cabinet ministers Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, J P Nadda and party MPs from Delhi — all signed off on Bedi’s candidature for the Krishna Nagar seat. SAFE AS A CITADEL Krishna Nagar is considered to be the safest seat for the BJP in Delhi. An RSS stronghold, the seat has a dedicated cadre not prone to infighting. The cadre has had Harsh Vardhan as its undisputed leader. Harsh Vardhan won from here five times he contested. The constituency has 45 per cent Punjabis and 12 per cent Sikhs, while 10 per cent are from Baniya community. There is one ward named Ghondli that has between15,000 and 20,000 Muslims. The area houses the Sikh and Hindu population that was displaced from Pakistan after the Partition in 1947. These families have generally voted for the Congress for generations. One of the party’s senior leader summed up the constituency like this, “Shah had spoken about the cadre winning the seat, not candidate, and this is very true when it comes to Krishna Nagar. This is a cadre’s seat.”
