After winning Uttar Pradesh, BJP national president Amit Shah has set his eyes on Delhi. Defeating the Aam Aadmi Party in the upcoming municipal polls has become crucial for the party that wants to establish its foothold across the country. Shah held two meetings in the capital on Sunday — one with all Delhi leaders, cadre and Union ministers and the other with the core team of Union ministers. Around 80 people attended the meeting. At the meeting, the BJP’s strategy was loud and clear — “to discredit the AAP by defeating them in the upcoming MCD elections”, a party leader said. “This way AAP will come out of the trance that people have faith in them,” said a senior BJP leader. The BJP’s decision to not give any sitting councillor or their family members ticket from any ward was reiterated at the meeting. The meeting also made it clear that no candidate would be allowed to jump wards. For example, anyone from A ward will not get ticket from B ward. Earlier, those who didn’t get ticket from one ward used their influence and gained a ticket from an adjoining ward. This has now been banned. So, a worker or candidate from A ward can contest only in A ward, it has been learnt. According to sources, throughout the meeting, Shah just sat and listened and few took notes of the suggestions. The meeting went on for two hours. Apart from leaders of the state unit, Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Sanjeev Balyan, Vijay Goel, Members of Parliament Ramesh Bidhuri, Pravesh Verma, Manoj Tiwari, Maheish Girri, Harshvardhan, Meenakshi Lekhi, Udit Raj, Pawan Sharma, Vijendra Gupta, Satish Upadhyay, Shyam Jaju and organisational secretary (BJP) Siddharthan were present at the meeting. The polls are as crucial for the AAP as it is for the BJP and both the parties making this contest as a fight for ‘Varchasva’ (domination), sources said.
