Delhi CM Announcement: Why BJP Veteran May Lose Race?

BJP Veteran Stood Tall Amid Rout in Delhi During AAP Peak

By Manish Anand

New Delhi, February 19: Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is a political laboratory. For decades, political careers have been launched from the civic body.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress have groomed their next generation of leaders from the political turf of the MCD. The political clout of the MCD for decades rivalled even the Delhi government.

On occasions, the ruling political entity fretted Delhi government even if leadership at both places was from the same outfit. Ram babu Sharma almost acted as an Opposition leader against Sheila Dikshit. Sharma held the fort of the MCD while Dikshit led the Delhi government. Both were Congress top guns in Delhi in the first decade of the millennia.

Dikshit sought to destroy the political power of the MCD by splitting it into smaller units. After her ouster, those smaller units again became one large entity.

During the hey days of Dikshit-Sharma in the Congress, the BJP also had the jugalbandi of two leaders to gain the spotlight. The veteran Subhash Arya from the BJP is now almost into his retirement from politics.

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Arya’s apprentice is now the BJP’s known face in Delhi with unique record to have withstood the storm of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). He again won the Assembly elections.

The BJP’s Rohini MLA Vijendra Gupta made his mark in politics as the standing committee chairman of the MCD almost two decades ago. Afterwards, he became the president of the Delhi unit of the BJP.

Gupta won Assembly elections from Rohini even in 2015 and 2020 when the AAP swept away the BJP. In the MCD, Gupta showed his street fighting skills. On occasions, his clothes were torn in scuffle in the municipal houses.

With three MLAs in the Delhi, which included himself, Gupta was the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly during 2015-20. He faced theatrics of the AAP with brave face. To his dismay, Gupta’s meeting with then Chief Minister Atishi turned into a staged video tamasha when then minister Saurabh Bhardwaj grabbed his feet to plead him to argue Delhi government’s case for regularization of jobs of bus marshals with lieutenant governor Vinai Kumar Saxena.

Now that the Delhi BJP legislators hold the meeting today, the spotlight is on Gupta. Will the BJP finally reward him and choose Gupta as the next Chief Minister of Delhi?

Gupta may be disappointed. A section of the BJP leaders in Delhi argue that Gupta had a long rope to become a face of the party in the national capital but he came short on expectations. Besides, they argue, there are too many detractors of Gupta in the city unit of the party. Also, they stressed, while Gupta had been a member of the national executive of the BJP for several years, he remained a “back-bencher”.

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About The Author

Manish Anand

Manish Anand is a senior journalist with more than two decades of hardcore reporting on beats such as Prime Minister’s Office, Parliament, BJP, Congress, Planning Commission, NITI Aayog, and scores of Union Ministries.

His past has been with The New Indian Express, The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle, and The Statesman.

For about 15 years, Manish was also a regular commentator and host for talks on AIR on foreign affairs.

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