BJP leaders regret underestimating AAP in Delhi

The party accepted that the rise of Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party had taken away their middle-class vote

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders said ignoring Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a political force in Delhi had deprived them of a decisive win.

The party accepted that the rise of the AAP  had taken a share away from their middle-class support, apart from the anti-incumbency vote.

“We had expected the AAP to win just seven or eight seats,” said a senior member of the party. “We are surprised.”

Party leaders said infighting within the leadership, less stress on ground-level political campaigning and delayed decision-making were the other reasons for their comparative loss.

One leader said the delay in picking the chief ministerial candidate had affected the morale of the cadre and leadership. Until late October , the party did not declare one. It eventually picked Harsh Vardhan, even as it feared a rebellion from city president Vijay Goel.

The domino effect was that crucial decisions such as announcement of policies in the manifesto and the marketing strategy had to be revised. This hurt the party. For instance, on electricity power rates, Vardhan only reluctantly accepted Vijay Goel’s electoral promise of a deep cut. Posters and campaign strategies were revised one month before the polls.

Apart from infighting over the leadership, the BJP’s loss was also fuelled by factionalism. A breakaway group led by Jagdish Shettigar and K N Govindacharya supported Kejriwal through cadre support and by raising resources for his campaigns.

The BJP's traditional style of door-to-door campaigning was less aggressively pursued. A party leader, close to Vardhan, blamed the lack of ground-level campaigning as the reason for its loss. The leader compared the campaign with that of the AAP, which capitalised on door-to-door campaigning. “The AAP hit the road much before we did,” the leader said.