Delhi BJP must to do more to strengthen credibility: Jaitley

BJP leader Arun Jaitley Thursday said that the party unit in Delhi will have to do a lot more in order to strengthen the perception of its credibility and its leaders will have to measure up to popular expectations.

In an article on the party's website, he said though the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the largest party in terms of votes and seats in last month's assembly polls, the results were a cause of introspection for the party.

"Its leaders as also individual candidates will have to measure up to popular expectations. Installation of Dr.Harsh Vardhan as party's unquestioned leader in Delhi is a step in the right direction," he said.

Jaitley contended that that the bar of expectation of people has been raised high and it is not merely the Indian middle class which is the strong opinion maker, but there was a substantial aspirational class whose level of expectations was entirely different.

"They are going to judge Indian politics, persons in public life and the quality of governance harshly. They will vote in governments and vote out governments if they found them not meeting popular aspirations," he said.

He said Shivraj Singh Chouhan led the BJP to electoral victory for the third time in Madhya Pradesh because of his performance and personal credibility.

"At any given point of time, polls rated his acceptability as higher than the BJP," he said.

Raman Singh's personal credibility coupled with the success of the public distribution system saw the BJP through in Chhattisgarh, he added.

On the Aam Aadmi Party's showing in Delhi, he claimed that the Congress had lost its credibility but a section of the electorate was impressed with the idea of experimenting a new alternative.