Sharad Pawar jabs BJP over Delhi loss, makes a prediction for the future
Pawar, who had tweeted his congratulations to the AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal for sweeping the Delhi elections, said the poll result indicated that “the Modi-Shah magic has failed in Delhi”.
Nationalist Congress Party boss Sharad Pawar hurled a string of darts at the Bharatiya Janata Party over its defeat to the Aam Aadmi Party that came close to match its 2015 spectacular performance. The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP is leading on 61 seats, leaving just about 9 seats for the BJP which had led a high-powered campaign that largely focused on national issues and built its campaign around the Shaheen Bagh protests in the national capital.
Pawar, who had tweeted his congratulations to the AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal for sweeping the Delhi elections, said the poll result indicated that “the Modi-Shah magic has failed in Delhi”.
For the BJP, Pawar suggested, the setback in the national capital wouldn’t be its last one.
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“I don’t think BJP’s series of defeat will stop soon,” said Pawar, according to news agency Press Trust of India.
The only other state scheduled to face elections this year is Bihar and Pondicherry.
Pawar said people of the capital had rejected the divisive campaign, just it had happened earlier in Maharashtra and similar results will mirror in the next Lok Sabha elections
Pawar’s NCP had played a key role to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party out of power after the BJP emerged as the single largest party but ran into trouble with its pre-poll ally Shiv Sena.
Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena formed the government in Maharashtra after a brief spell of central rule along with the NCP and the Congress. The NCP and Shiv Sena leaders who constitute the state’s Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance have cheered for the AAP that they say, fought the election on the plank of concrete and visible development projects executed at the ground level for the people.
NCP national spokesperson and state minister Nawab Malik saw the election as a defeat of BJP’s “arrogance”.
“Politics of hatred and division has been rejected, the ideals of unity and brotherhood have won. The politics of sheer arrogance has been defeated and the people of Delhi have won,” said Malik, according to news agency IANS.
He pointed out that during the campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed to the people of Delhi to vote against the “anti-national forces”.
“The people of Delhi have bowed before Modiji’s call. They have declared BJP as ‘anti-national’ now,” Malik said, according to the news agency.