Delhi election debacle is Amit Shah’s failure, says Saamana

A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) crushing defeat against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi Assembly elections, the Shiv Sena on Wednesday termed

A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) crushing defeat against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi Assembly elections, the Shiv Sena on Wednesday termed it “a failure of Union home minister Amit Shah, rather than Prime Minister Narendra Modi or BJP national president JP Nadda”.

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The mouthpiece of the Sena, a former ally of the BJP, said AAP’s win on 62 of the 70 seats was not “surprising”.

The Sena has been backing Delhi chief minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal for the “model work” carried out in the national capital in the past five years.

The editorial, in party mouthpiece Saamana, said the BJP was losing state elections continuously, as it was facing “tough competition” from either a party or a leader, unlike the Lok Sabha elections where Modi’s charisma brought them to power.

“More than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah made the Delhi elections a matter of honour. JP Nadda recently took over the reins of the party, but the real head was Amit Shah. He wanted to win an election before his tenure as the party president ended. They lost Jharkhand and Maharashtra. AAP’s flag is flying high in the national capital, while a Shiv Sena chief minister is installed in the financial capital,” the editorial said on Wednesday.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party said the poll debacle was the defeat of the “ego, arrogance and what-we-say-is-the-rule attitude”.

It credited Kejriwal for his campaign, which was focused on development and the work carried out by his party, against the BJP’s “polarisation attempt”. “The BJP tried to build its campaign around issues such as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), Hindu-Muslims and labelled the Shaheen Bagh protest an agitation of Muslims alone. The electorate did not fall for such polarisation and voted in favour of Kejriwal,” it said.

“All seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi were won by the BJP last year, but in the Assembly polls, it faced a strong local alternative in the form of Arvind Kejriwal, who sought votes on the basis of work,” the Sena said.