With MPs leading offensive, Delhi BJP tries to trump AAP in narrative war

For the evening slots in news channels for interviews and debates, the party fielded East Delhi MP Gautam Gambhir, South Delhi parliamentarian Ramesh Bidhuri, Verma, and Tiwari. While New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi was out of the country, the only parliamentarian from the national Capital who did not participate in the BJP’s onslaught against the AAP was North West Delhi MP Hans Raj Hans.

“The exercise was being closely monitored by the central leadership. There were clear instructions that MPs who are more popular face will take the lead rather than state unit leaders,” said a senior BJP leader. Along with a senior state unit functionary, Union Minister Anurag Thakur, who also launched an attack on Sisodia and Kejriwal, was part of the team that oversaw the Delhi BJP’s media strategy.

The senior leader said Delhi BJP had received clear instructions from the central leadership to reformulate its communication strategy and build a narrative against the AAP, something it has failed to do in recent times.

The liquor policy mess

The state BJP leadership has been vocal against the AAP’s liquor policy from the beginning, with Adesh Gupta maintaining the stand that the policy would promote alcoholism. The AAP denied the allegation and said the excise policy would lead to a fair distribution of alcohol shops geographically and the number of shops had decreased. The message, however, did not gain traction.

The now-scrapped excise policy and the CBI raid have exposed to the BJP what it sees as a chink in the AAP’s armour that it can take advantage of. Adesh Gupta said party volunteers would go to the wards with the message that the policy was intended to reduce revenue and increase liquor sales, and that there was massive corruption.

Senior BJP leaders said the party would hit where it would hurt the AAP the most — the ruling party’s plank of being born out of an anti-corruption movement and its projection as an honest party.

Gautam Gambhir told The Indian Express that the “whole corruption was planned to earn money and win elections”. He added, “These are the same people who used to say during the Anna movement that everyone is corrupt except them … We know how the AAP controls media through advertisements, but it cannot stop us from taking to the people the message of their corruption. The AAP has been targetting the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) but it had no concrete proof, but now their minister Satyendra Jain is behind bars on court orders and they had to take back their liquor policy.”

BJP spokesperson Harish Khurana said posters on the “AAP’s corruption” were being put up across Delhi.

AAP’s counter

The ruling party is banking on the good name Sisodia has earned because of the improvement in Delhi’s education system, with party insiders saying that it differentiates the Deputy CM from someone like Jain.

As part of its strategy to counter the BJP’s narrative on this episode, the AAP has pushed two messages. One, the BJP is rattled by the growing popularity of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and that he will be the challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Second, the BJP has accused the CBI of acting on the Centre’s behest as the Modi-led Union government feels insecure about the success of the AAP’s education model that received coverage from The New York Times.

AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the Delhi education and health models were popular across India and the world and the BJP wanted to defame them. “If the prime minister’s thinking is so small that he doesn’t allow to work in the field of education and health, then how will you take the country forward? What vision do you have for the country?”

Sisodia and several other party leaders such as Saurabh Bhardwaj, Sanjay Singh, and Raghav Chadha also claimed after the raid that the 2024 general elections would be about Modi versus Kejriwal.

Sisodia told reporters on Saturday, “After the Punjab elections, Kejriwal is being loved by the masses across the country and they are seeing him as a national leader and alternative option. And this is worrying the BJP because of which they are fabricating false cases against me … All these are scripted.”

But the Delhi BJP has been instructed to stick to attacking the AAP over the liquor policy and not get into a debate on the public education system in the national capital. “We have been exposing them on education in the past … But as of now we want answers on liquor policy, it is like I am asking what is your father’s name, and they are saying my grandfather’s name is this,” said Tiwari.

Neelkant Bakshi who was earlier in charge of the state BJP’s media unit said, “The more they will not answer on liquor policy and drag the debate to education, the more it suits us as people also wants to know their defence.”