In spite of neck-and-neck race between the BJP and AAP, Delhi appears to be again heading towards a hung assembly even after a year of the President’s rule. Delhi votes on February 7 but the results will be known three days later. BJP’s Bedi, her former associate-turned-rival Kejriwal and Congress’s Ajay Maken have been chosen by their parties to lead them in the prestigious electoral battle for Delhi.

A frequent question being asked is why Bedi was brought in as a CM candidate when capable people were available in the party. This has caused widespread resentment in the rank and file of the party and some leaders have even revolted. Evidently, the BJP didn’t want to take the risk of projecting Prime Minister Modi as the party’s face in the elections and give the impression it is Modi versus Kejriwal. Presuming the BJP loses and Kejriwal wins, it would be a loss of face for the PM and could be a setback to his rising image.

The party collectively thought Kiran Bedi would be a suitable candidate for the chief minister’s post because her’s is a strong personality and has an appeal among women voters. Also if Bedi becomes the CM, she would give Delhi good governance, given her record as a tough cop and able administrator The BJP leadership did not realize that this decision would give rise to resentment of such magnitude among the party’s workers. She may give Kejriwal a tough fight but it is doubtful if the BJP would get majority and form the government. Kejriwal should not be underestimated.

According to the BJP President Amit Shah, BJP would be benefitted by Bedi’s campaign against corruption and crime, and that women would feel safe under her leadership. “As far as strategy of the party on Bedi is concerned, it is obvious she has a history against crime and corruption. It benefits the BJP”, Shah said.

Corruption weighs heavily on people’s mind with a fairly high per cent saying it is the most important issue followed by inflation, women’s safety, shortage of drinking water and high power rates. In the 70-member assembly, with 36 being the simple majority mark, BJP, APP and Congress had won 32, 28 and eight seats respectively in 2013 elections. This resulted in the installation of minority government, led by the AAP supported by the Congress.

Even though Delhi unit of the BJP is still waiting for release of the party manifesto for assembly poll, Bedi is tweeting her own version of the party’s programme on women security. The BJP may skip a manifesto as there is no clarity about the issues to be taken up in the party document, including full statehood for Delhi. A draft manifesto had been prepared but it was put on hold after Bedi’s induction into the party. Union Minister, Harsh Vardhan, who is in charge of manifesto committee, has given the draft to Bedi but the state unit is yet to hear from her.

With a week left for the polling, the campaigning has reached a decisive phase. BJP has planned to highlight eight issues by senior leaders but nothing on manifesto has been decided yet; it may not be released at all. New Delhi MP, Meenakshi Lekhi, talked about women security and similarly health, power and water related issues. She said these are issues, which are generally there in the manifesto but, this time, “we may just end up highlighting these issues rather than issuing a manifesto”. According to latest reports, the BJP will replace manifesto with a ‘vision document’, statehood issue for Delhi to be left out.

With just a week remaining for the election, BJP launched an attack on Kejriwal. It will pose five questions to Kejriwal every day till February 5 when campaign comes to a close. The five questions, however, did not ruffle many feathers in the AAP. Senior party leader, Yogendra Yadav, said, “Not five, let us debate 50 questions. We invited the BJP for a debate but they ran away. It has run away from its manifesto, so how can we take damn squib questions seriously?”

The first question, where BJP says that Kejriwal went back on his promise of not taking support from Congress to form the government, the APP response was: “We did not take support, it was forced on us. Without consulting us, a letter was sent to LG.” On why Kejriwal failed to file the FIR against former CM Sheila Dikshit on charges of corruption, the reply was: “Filed five FIRs in the CWG scam”.

Replying to charges that Kejriwal had taken security after saying he would not accept security, the response was: “Where and when did he take security? What you are calling security was only a way of managing the crowds.” (IPA Service)