Small parties won it for BJP

More than people’s anger towards the Congress government at the Centre as well as in Delhi, political analysts felt the BJP should thank smaller parties for its victory in the municipal elections this year. HT reports.

More than people’s anger towards the Congress government at the Centre as well as in Delhi, political analysts felt the BJP should thank smaller parties for its victory in the municipal elections this year.

From-left-BJP-s-Venkaiah-Naidu-Nitin-Gadkari-Vijender-Gupta-and-Vijay-Goel-flash-the-victory-sign-Arvind-Yadav-HT-Photo

Sanjay Kumar, fellow at Centre for Study of Developing Societies, said Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) ate up the Congress vote share which helped the BJP.

“If you look at the seat share of the smaller parties and independents, then you will see it has gone up tremendously. These are voters who used to vote for the Congress but are disillusioned now,” Kumar said.

Party leaders, however, felt it was a vote against the Congress. “Our strategy of bringing up price rise and corruption worked well. One of the reasons why Congress didn’t win more seats is because the public is very angry. We came out with a booklet on Congress involvement in scams in the past couple of years. Also, despite having an economist of the stature of Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister, inflation is at an all-time high,” said a party leader.

Senior BJP leaders said their strategy to replace sitting councillors with fresh faces also largely helped neutralise any possibility of anti-incumbency. Of the 164 sitting councillors, the BJP reposed faith in just about 35 and gave tickets to new faces. Though it resulted in large-scale dissidence and more than 70 party workers, sitting councillors or their family members contested against the party’s official candidates, BJP leaders said they managed to placate a number of them.

“Only a few rebels finally contested and most of them lost. Even those rebels who have won have now agreed to come back to the party fold,” said a senior BJP leader.