BJP leaves nothing to chance as it makes a bid for a fourth term at MCD

SANTOSH KUMAR PATHAK

New Delhi, Nov 13 (IANS) In the rup-up to the December 4 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls, the national capital is abuzz with political activities with the BJP, which has been ruling the civic body for 15 straight years, striving to strengthen its position and the Aam Aadmi Party stepping up its efforts to wrest the civic body from it.

With the vote bank of the Congress, which previously formed the government in Delhi by winning the Assembly elections for three consecutive terms under the leadership of Sheila Dikshit, shifting towards the AAP, for the first time BJP is going to face a direct political fight with the Kejriwal government.

Speaking to IANS, BJP National General Secretary and member of the MCD election committee, Dushyant Gautam pointed out that his party refuses to consider AAP as a potential challenger as it is a "party of liars" which the people are aware of.

Terming Kejriwal a "negligent" chief minister, Gautam said that the BJP is going to win the civic polls once again on the basis of its developmental work.

Since 2007, the BJP continues to have a strong hold over the MCD. In 2007, despite the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre and Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi, the people voted for the BJP in the 2007 municipal elections.

Dikshit, the then Delhi Chief Minister in 2011, divided the MCD further into three civic bodies -- North, East and South Delhi Municipal Corporation to weaken the BJP in the civic body, he alleged. An unfazed BJP still romped back to power in the 2012 elections defeating the Congress in all the three municipal corporations.

During the 2017 polls, there was already a change in power both at the Centre and in Delhi with Narendra Modi taking over as the Prime Minister and Arvind Kejriwal forming his government in the national capital.

Though Kejriwal was at the peak of his popularity in 2017, the BJP won the civic polls for the third consecutive time in all the three municipal bodies, proving its mettle and giving out the message that it continues to enjoy the people's confidence.

This time, the elections to the three municipal corporations were proposed to be held in April 2022, but had to be postponed due to the initiation of the process of merging all three civic bodies into a single body by the Centre.

Now all the three municipal corporations of Delhi have been amalgamated into a single civic body again and after its delimitation, the total number of municipal wards has been reduced from 272 to 250.

As per the election schedule announced by the Delhi State Election Commission, polling for the upcoming MCD elections will be held on December 4 while the counting of votes will take place on December 7.

However, more than the AAP's thumping majority in the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections, the bigger concern for the BJP is to counter AAP's aggressive election campaign.

The duo of Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia have repeatedly been cornering the saffron party on the landfill issue besides several other key issues being faced by the common man on a daily basis.

At the same time, the BJP, which is trying to defeat the Congress in other states apart from Delhi, is also feeling jittery due to the declining presence of the Congress in the city.

If the Congress contests the upcoming MCD elections going full throttle it will result in a triangular political fight between the BJP, Congress and the AAP, which will directly benefit the BJP.

However, despite AAP's aggressive campaigning, the BJP seems to be in a comfortable position on many fronts.

According to Dushyant Gautam, the BJP has been in power in the Delhi civic body for the last 15 years and the party will go to the public showcasing its achievements during this regime at the MCD. He adds that the saffron party will also expose the negative attitude, false poll promises and cases of corruption levelled against the AAP-led Delhi government.

Gautam says that it will tell the people of Delhi about how the Kejriwal government has turned the city into a gas chamber and also instead of cleaning the river Yamuna, the AAP government has polluted which was evident during the 'Chhath Puja'.

During the 2017 MCD elections, to neutralise the anti-incumbency, BJP played a major masterstroke by denying tickets to the sitting councillors.

This time also, the BJP's political opponents are waiting for its official policy of ticket distribution since they fear that this time, too, it may take any surprising move to counter the anti-incumbency.