This is one election where you can’t accuse the BJP of not trying hard enough. After all, it dreamt up sop after sop after sop after sop in the run-up to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to keep middle class voters on its side. But smart sops do not always an election win make: New Delhi’s unmoved, unimpressed voters have crossed over to the Congress, leaving the BJP at the bottom of the heap in the same city where its party heads the Central government. The BJP tried every trick of the trade: it delayed the shifting of polluting industries out of city limits; cut LPG cylinder prices by Rs 20; moved ‘Demolition Minister’ Jagmohan from the urban development ministry to tourism and culture and protected the very posh and totally unauthorised Sainik Farms residential colony in south Delhi from bulldozers. The party also put the brakes on demolitions in Lajpat Nagar, a residential area in south Delhi and a BJP stronghold, two months before the polls. And it got Union Urban Development minister Ananth Kumar to lay as many as six foundation stones in a span of two hours and grant Rs 100 crore to road maintenance to the MCD a few months ago, back, to improve the condition of roads in Delhi. In fact, Ananth Kumar went where his predecessor had refused to go: he declared that the MCD had been permitted to allow residents people to build on the second floor, provided the number of residents living in the building stayed the same. The result: the Congress won 107 out of 134 seats in this month’s last elections against 45 last year, which the BJP sunk down to an all-time low of 17 from 79. BJP General Secretary Pyare Lal Khandelwal attributed the rout to three causes: disenchantment of the voters with the party, mass dissatisfaction with the performance of BJP members in the MCD, and the indifference of party workers to the election. The party’s national executive, which is scheduled to meet in Goa from April 13, will be looking hard at the causes for the party’s defeat in the corporation, he said. ‘‘In the wake of POTO, Ayodhya and the Gujarat riots, Indians no longer want what the BJP stands for. New Delhi is no exception to that,’’ said Congress leader in-charge of Delhi, Kamal Nath. ‘‘It isn’t the anti-incumbency factor that given us the victory in the MCD polls. If that were the case, then we too would have lost out since we had 56 MLAs in the Assembly. This is a positive vote from all sections of society,’’ he added. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit also sought some credit for the victory, saying Delhiites had ‘‘reaffirmed their faith in the Congress’’ because the party had been providing solutions for the past three years. ‘‘It is not anti-incumbency. It is a positive vote for a party that delivers,’’ said Dikshit. Vijay Goel, BJP minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office, tried to blame the defeat on ‘external’ factors. ‘‘None of these concessions was a cheap gimmick. The capital’s population has increased from 10 lakh to more than a crore, but amenities and infrastructure haven’t been able to keep pace. And it’s not possible for any party to deliver in such a case. This is the anti-incumbency factor at work and not a Congress victory,’’ he said.
