© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Balancing gender, caste and community with experience, its vision of a “Delhi befitting the status of India’s capital city” and consolidating, for the future, a political mandate that has eluded it for close to three decades — these are the factors that are likely to guide the BJP’s decision while picking its Delhi Chief Minister, according to party sources.
According to sources, discussions on a potential CM began soon after the announcement of the party’s final list of candidates in January, coinciding with the beginning of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public meetings in the city later that month.
So far, the discussions are learnt to have revolved around possibilities ranging from picking one of its seven Lok Sabha MPs from the Capital — six of the seven are first-time Parliamentarians — to choosing one of its new legislators with the highest victory margin, especially a woman leader, for the post.
In addition, sources said, the selection of “more than one deputy chief minister” was also a possibility.
“A BJP Lok Sabha MP could be the CM pick. East Delhi MP Harsh Malhotra, North East Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari and New Delhi MP Bansuri Swaraj seem to tick all the boxes required in this regard,” a party source said.
With the BJP currently in the throes of a change at its helm, and, possibly, in its Delhi unit as well, a party source said if an MP is chosen as the Chief Minister, a “senior leader from the state unit” could be fielded for the bypoll from that seat.
While the BJP may be spoiled for choice when it comes to “giant killers”, both in terms of gender as well as experience, caste and community — especially with regard to an OBC face – may also play a major role.
“While there are incoming MLAs like former West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma, who defeated Arvind Kejriwal and is understood to have been personally chosen by the PM to take on the former Delhi CM, two former presidents of the party’s state unit — Vijender Gupta, who won for the fourth consecutive term, with a margin of almost 38,000 votes, and Satish Upadhyay, whose winning margin is a little over 2,100, are also there,” a senior leader said.
“Both these leaders have risen through the ranks of the party and have immense experience in administration since they have been MCD councillors. On the other hand, women candidates like Rekha Sharma, who won with a margin of almost 30,000 votes from Shalimar Bagh, and Shikha Rai, who defeated AAP Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj with just over 3,100 votes, cannot be ignored,” the party leader added.
However, some party leaders cautioned that these are all just names that are being floated at the moment. “Several names will fly now as BJP won the polls with majority. But none of those names will become the CM face… As in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, the CM candidate will be a surprise in Delhi too,” a senior BJP leader said.
Sources said the party would assess its choice with regard to several parameters, including the vote share based on caste/ sub-community, that contributed to the BJP’s return to power after 27 years.
