Battle for Delhi: How AAP has shown that BJP has neither issues nor a face to fight polls

New Delhi, Feb 04: The stage is set as the national capital goes to assembly polls on February 8, where Delhi's ruling AAP, the incumbent BJP, and the Congress are locked in a triangular fight.

The Aam Aadmi Party which changed the political landscape of Delhi, winning as many as 67 out of 70 seats in the 2015 Assembly elections has reached out to people with ideas of good governance. While, the BJP is trying to challenge the AAP and the Congress is still recovering from the 2015 drubbing.

During the high-octane poll campaigning in the national capital, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah held several rallies to woo voters in the state even before the Election Commission announced the poll schedule in the capital.

However, all speeches appear to be devoid of any real issue and they seem to have no connect with Delhi, which usually votes on local issues.

Cornering the BJP over lack of strategy, Aam Aadmi Party's Delhi Convener Gopal Rai, speaking to news agency IANS, said the BJP is contesting the elections in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will not become the chief minister of Delhi.

"They neither have issues nor a leader in Delhi. They don't have any leadership for the polls. They have no leader who can lead the elections and one of the reasons for not revealing a chief minister candidate is because they don't even have the confidence that they will form a government," Rai told IANS.

Meanwhile, Kejriwal repeatedly saying he wanted the voters to judge him on the basis of the work his government has done in the past five years, the duo talked about anything but AAP's report card. It is very evident that that AAP has scored pretty high, compared to BJP's local leadership in terms of its performance.

Kejriwal has a report card of helping the poor segments, mainly in the health and education sectors. At the same time, the capital's wider interests like infrastructure development, which would require huge support from the Centre were not effectively addressed by the BJP government.

Soon after the budget, Kejriwal sought to play the election card as he said there was no reason for Delhi to vote for the BJP in the upcoming Assembly elections.

The Chief Minister said that the people of Delhi do not feature in the list of priorities for the BJP and it was evident in the Budget today. He said the saffron party will not fulfill its promises made in its manifesto for Delhi after elections.

"Delhi had a lot of expectations from the Budget. But once again, Delhi has been given the step-motherly treatment. Delhi does not come in BJP's priority, so why should Delhi vote for BJP?" he tweeted in Hindi.

"The question is also that when the BJP has disappointed Delhi before the election, what is the guarantee that it will keep its promises after the election?" Kejriwal asked.

BJP's lack of leadership and ideas

The projection of Modi as the 'supreme leader' is also a reflection of a lack of leadership in BJP, especially in Delhi.

The BJP is banking on abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, CAA, NRC. This effort did help the BJP win 303 seats in the Lok Sabha elections held over April and May. But losses in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand have shown that nationalism is not an issue in local elections.

BJP targets AAP rule

Top BJP leaders, including party president JP Nadda and Union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goel, Hardeep Puri and Smriti Irani, also slammed the Kejriwal government, accusing it of failing to fulfil its promises and supporting "anti-national" elements.

Shah claimed that former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had promised citizenship to minorities from Pakistan but the Congress is now protesting the amended citizenship law because it is "afraid of its vote bank in Shaheen Bagh".

Campaigning for the polls will conclude on February 6 evening.

The elections for the Delhi Assembly's 70 seats will be held on February 8. Results will be declared on February 11.