Kiran Bedi for Delhi is a wise move by BJP

 
The most immediate trigger has to be the rally over which Modi presided earlier this month in Delhi – pictures of vacant chairs belied the BJP’s boast of gathering a lakh to hear him. Nor was the audience, media reports suggested, overly enthusiastic. It was, in a way, a testament to the limits of Modi’s popularity, even its waning. His becoming the party’s face for the Delhi state election was fraught with the risk.
This was more so because in Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind kejriwal the BJP had a formidable personality to contend against. He may lack the countrywide following of Modi, but Delhiites, particularly the lower classes, think of Kejriwal as their very own. His 49-day stint as Delhi chief minister had the city’s notoriously callous and corrupt police show restraint and a modicum of respect to the underclasses; the menace of bribery was checked to a degree, and the reduction in power and waters bills have had the AAP expand its base, evident from the near four percent increase in the vote-share of the party in the Lok Sabha elections.
His profuse apology for quitting the government has also helped repair his image. Count the number of politicians who have sought forgiveness for their mistakes and you’d understand why he has suddenly started appearing as a comeback man.
Modi and Kejriwal apart, the BJP had to also countenance the nature of the Delhi electorate. It’s more educated, more conscious about the Constitution than most other states. It wouldn’t have been easy to convince Delhi that voting the BJP in the name of Modi would mean living under his governance. Aware of the BJP’s strategy of turning electoral battles into contests between Modi versus the rest, the AAP had been laboriously pointing to the absence of talent in the BJP’s Delhi unit, the inability of anyone in it to match Kejriwal.
Through Bedi the BJP is offering an alternative to Kejriwal to Delhi, where the middle class plays a significant role in determining electoral fortunes. Having voted the BJP overwhelmingly in the General Election, the middle class has become a tad wary of the Sangh Parivar and its disruptive politics. This wariness has risen from its ghar wapsi and love jihad programmes and the intemperate remarks of some of the BJP’s MPs, as also from Modi’s refusal to reprimand them. Was the BJP not voted to usher in development? the middle class asks.