In Battle Gujarat, a front seeing active action is Delhi

In June, a 17-member BJP delegation from Gujarat visited Delhi for a “survey” of schools and health facilities during which they also shot videos. Former Vadodara mayor Jyoti Pandya who was in the team then said that the footage would be used by the party in Gujarat.

The BJP has also been sending its leaders from Delhi to Gujarat for campaigning. Soon after the video surfaced of Delhi government minister (now resigned) Rajendra Pal Gautam speaking at a conversion event where an oath was taken renouncing Hindu gods and goddesses, BJP leader Kapil Mishra was in Vadodara addressing a gathering.

Gautam might have resigned, but the BJP won’t be giving up on the matter. Sources in the party said more Delhi leaders are scheduled to go to Gujarat, where they would raise both the conversion event row and the controversy around the shelved liquor policy of AAP.

A BJP leader said that it was natural for the party to deploy Delhi leaders who “are better aware of AAP’s functioning”. However, the leader said, they saw little cause for panic. “At present they are not a major threat and by splitting (Congress) votes, they are only helping us.”

There is another Delhi link to the Gujarat elections that AAP is apprehensive about. It fears that the delayed elections to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) may finally be held in the month of December, which would leave the resources of AAP – with its much smaller cadre base compared to the BJP – stretched across the two states.

“There is no clarity on whether there will be polls in December but the buzz that has been created definitely affects the itinerary of Delhi leaders or councillors who were planning to go to Gujarat,” said a former councillor of AAP. “We are a small party with limited resources… now one will think about guarding their own territory due to corporation polls instead of going to Gujarat.”

The BJP has kept the pot boiling on the civic polls by planning a series of interactions of senior leaders in Delhi, keeping AAP on tenterhooks. Party president J P Nadda is scheduled to hold a karyakarta meeting on October 16, which could be followed by Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurating a library set up by BJP MP Gautam Gambhir in East Delhi.

The BJP central leadership has also stepped in to mount the offensive on AAP, a task earlier performed by the Delhi unit. Even during the Assembly elections of Delhi in 2020, it was the state office where all the action happened.

Now, since the arrest of AAP minister Satyendra Jain in May, followed by the raid at Deputy CM Manish Sisodia’s house over the now shelved liquor policy, the party has been holding press conferences attacking AAP at its national office, with senior spokespersons like Gaurav Bhatia, Sambit Patra and MPs like Manoj Tiwari and Parvesh Sahib Singh taking part in it. Around 20 such press conferences have been held in the past two months.