With BJP’s first list having many turncoats, Nadda seeks to quell rebellion

The polls are crucial as BJP has failed to form government in the national capital for 26 years

With the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) first candidate list out and second expected within the next couple days for the Delhi Assembly polls, party president J.P. Nadda participated in election management meetings at the Delhi BJP office on Thursday (January 9, 2025). Sources in the party said while addressing the workers, Mr. Nadda emphasised on ensuring support for the 70 candidates who will be fielded in Delhi instead of getting disheartened about not receiving a ticket.

This comes as the party’s first list featured eight turncoats out of 29 candidates. A source in the party said the party cadre was disheartened by the lack of young and fresh faces in the first list. Several of the names of the list are candidates who already served as MLAs in Delhi and have lost polls in 2013 and 2020.

Editorial | Winter contest: On the Delhi Assembly elections

Sources present during Mr. Nadda’s address said the party president asked the BJP cadre to pull their full force behind the 70 people who were being fielded instead of resorting to rebellion. The BJP has failed to form government in the national capital for 26 years, which is why these polls are extremely crucial for it.

The sources said Mr. Nadda reminded the party that Delhi went beyond the Lutyens’s area, and asked the workers to campaign with full strength in both central areas of Delhi as well as the outskirts. The BJP chief also raised the issue of migrant voters in the capital, especially people from the Purvanchal belt, targeting them as a large voter base of the party.

Slams AAP chief

Mr. Nadda, slamming AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s statements of increasing number of voters, especially from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, said “Mr. Kejriwal, who has been looting Delhi for the last 10 years by creating a disaster of corruption, started fearing defeat and he got agitated and started making baseless statements against our brothers and sisters of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Mr. Kejriwal has insulted our people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar by calling them fake voters. The people of Delhi will definitely give him a reply by uprooting him from power.”

However, the first list of the party does not feature any Purvanchal faces. Additionally, the BJP is expected to roll out a scheme for women on lines similar to Madhya Pradesh’s Ladli Behna Yojana and Odisha’s Subhadra Yojana. However, only two women feature on the party’s first list.

During the interactions with BJP members of the Election Steering Committee and the Election Management Committee to gather updates on electoral arrangements and provide guidance for improvement. Mr. Nadda stated that this election offers an opportunity to choose between Mr. Kejriwal’s falsehoods and corruption and the BJP’s truth and development. He expressed confidence that the people of Delhi would make the right choice and free the city from AAP-induced disasters.

Meanwhile, Northeast Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari, addressing media persons after Mr. Nadda’s visit to the Delhi BJP office, said that in the upcoming few days, the BJP’s sankalp patra (manifesto) would be released and “we will provide Delhi all the facilities that the AAP government has failed to give, including clean water, job security, and clean air.”

Published - January 09, 2025 10:54 pm IST