Delhi polls: Modi and BJP's seven self-goals

The Chanakyas of BJP who were able to weave magic in the Lok Sabha elections could not seem to put one foot right in the Delhi polls. They were outwitted by a young guerrilla army fighting only its third election. Hindsight is 20-20. But here are the seven self-goals that caused BJP's Brahamastra to fail.

1. Delaying Assembly elections

The BJP and Modi were at the peak of their popularity in May last year. AAP had been handed a thorough defeat in the Lok Sabha polls. Kejriwal's morale was low and his party in tatters. Calling elections in August-September would have benefited the BJP. But the party was so wary of restarting the Kejriwal loudspeaker that they flirted with the dubious idea of breaking AAP and forming a minority government in the Capital. The BJP top brass wanted to give the prime minister a chance  to settle into his new job and did not want any distractions like Kejriwal levelling wild charges about the PM's proximity with top business houses.

2. Underestimating Kejriwal

After the drubbing AAP received in the Lok Sabha polls, BJP strategists were convinced that voters had seen through AAP's shenanigans. Several AAP MLAs were in touch with the BJP Delhi leadership and were indicating that they were willing to break away. Prominent faces like Shazia Ilmi and Kumar Vishwas were already striking discordant notes in public. Crowd-sourced funding had dried up. One time cheerleaders in the mass media had become cynical. AAP was staring into an abyss. The BJP calculated that Kejriwal would not be able to hold his party together and AAP would weaken as the months went by.

3. Nothing changed after May 16

Voters in the Capital had placed their faith in Modi's hands in May and they expected things to change once he became PM. But Modi got busy wooing the world and Amit Shah had his eyes trained on Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and then Jammu and Kashmir. Delhi fell through the cracks. Lt Governor Najeeb Jung struck reconciliatory notes towards the BJP leadership. While Governors of many states were sacked, Jung retained his job. Bureaucrats went about their lives as normal. The MCD remained as corrupt and inefficient as before. And the voter of Delhi wondered where were the "Acche din" he had been promised. Meanwhile Kejriwal went door to door apologising for running away from government and building his party bottom up. The BJP calculated that voters would crave to give Modi a chance to fix the state. Technically the BJP was not ruling Delhi but for the voters of the capital Modi was in charge and their lives were getting worse.

4. Bringing in Bedi

Modi and Amit Shah realised that the local BJP leadership was not being able to rally Delhi's voters. Finance minister Arun Jaitley was rooting for Kiran Bedi to be brought in as the face of the party's campaign. Jaitley was the only senior BJP leader who had been able to foretell AAP's rise before the last Delhi elections, when all other leaders were dismissing Kejriwal's challenge as a non-starter. Jaitely's views on Delhi were taken seriously by Shah and Modi. The party knew that local satraps would be cut up, but the duo overestimated their ability to quell dissent. They had done so in Gujarat and thought they could steamroll dissidents in Delhi too. But the BJP in Delhi is a unique creature. For decades local leaders have been part of the Capital's gravy train and they often put their own interests ahead those of the party. These leaders went into a shell after Bedi was brought onboard. Fiats were issued but to no avail. The local leaders pretended to be hard at work, but in their hearts they were hoping that the gambit would flop. Bedi did not help her cause either. In Krishna Nagar she told voters that there had been no development in the area over the last 20 years and that she would fix things. Even the affable Dr Harsh Vardhan went into a rage and backed off till Shah coerced him into hitting the campaign trail again with Bedi.

5. Sidelining local leadership

BJP's local Delhi leadership was uninspiring. But it was still the best the party had. Fed up with the sulking divas of the state unit, Shah and company decided to create a parallel superstructure to supersede the local organisation. RSS pracharaks and BJP workers from as far as Telangana, Karnataka, Odisha and Jharkhand were brought to the capital. But these workers did not know the lay of the land. And often they worked at cross purposes with the local leadership. The worker on the ground was confused and was being pulled in different directions.

6. Negative ads against Kejriwal

With Kejriwal gaining popularity and the BJP's campaign not clicking, the BJP decided to go negative. The BJP brass calculated that only a negative campaign could counter a "negative" force. Throwing positivity at someone so negative will get us nowhere' said a key member of BJP's think tank. This proved to be a fatal mistake. Kejriwal was able to turn each of the negative ads to his favour by presenting himself as the aam aadmi who was being targeted by the khas aadmis who had deep pockets to take out costly negative advertisements.

7. Becoming a khaas aadmi 

Modi had benefited from Sonia's "maut ka saudagar" outburst during the Gujarat Assembly elections in 2007. He managed to turn it into an affront on Gujarati pride. Modi benefited again when Priyanka Gandhi Vadra targeted his "neech rajneeti" during the campaign trail in UP in 2014. This time he turned it into an attack by a princess on a low caste tea seller. The electorate rallies around the underdog especially when the high and mighty are gunning for him. This time though the chaiwala was seen as the khaas aadmi gunning for the humble MufflerMan.