The ill-wishers within

For nearly a decade, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s second-rung leadership has chafed under Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and Sushma Swaraj, who are collectively referred to as the party's Delhi Club. Now, this second-rung is pinning its bets on the BJP's prime ministerial candidate for upward mobility in the party ranks. To this end, these leaders are energetically spreading the notion that the rise of Narendra Modi on May 16, the day of counting, will also see the electoral demise of all his potential rivals in the party, especially the Delhi Club veterans. They readily tell all listeners that Jaitley and Singh face tough electoral contests in their respective Lok Sabha constituencies of Amritsar and Lucknow, while Swaraj's battle in Vidisha against Congress General Secretary Digivijaya Singh's brother Lakshman will be tougher than expected.