Chandigarh news: Many reasons behind BJP’s defeat

Chandigarh: There were many reasons behind BJP’s defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. The party was trying to score a hat-trick by fielding Sanjay Tandon from Chandigarh seat. Anti-incumbency wave, infighting among party leaders, Tandon’s inability to take everyone along and the Prime Minister’s rally not being held in the city are some of the reasons for the saffron party’s defeat. Congress candidate Anil Masih was successful in capitalising on the issue of ballot paper tampering in the mayoral election. Tandon’s challenge to an open debate, Congress’ guarantee and support from AAP were other reasons that tilted the result in his favour. Senior BJP leaders including sitting MP Kirron Kher, former MP Satyapal Jain and previous city BJP president Arun Sood remained absent from active campaigning. They were also seeking a party ticket from here. After casting her vote, Kher, who was seen only at rallies of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and national BJP president JP Nadda, said that some people in the party ignored her. She and her political strategist Sahdev Salaria were not actively involved in the election. Many leaders felt that Tandon was running parallel teams in wards and his family was more involved in party affairs. This demoralised some workers. Anti-incumbency sentiment is another factor. Most felt that nothing was done in a decade to resolve long-standing issues. Also, the celebrity-turned-politician Tandon mostly stayed out of the city. Though BJP leaders had earlier claimed that unlike the previous two tenures, there was no need for a rally by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here as the party was confident of winning the seat easily, they now feel that if the Prime Minister had addressed a rally here, Tandon could have overcome the slender margin of 2,504 votes. “One of his rallies had made an impact even before the last election, which Kher eventually won even when his opponent Pawan Bansal of the Congress was performing strongly,” said a BJP leader.

The alliance between the Congress and the AAP, which has a mayor in the municipal corporation, worked for Tiwari. Most of the colonies, where about 46 per cent of the voters live, are represented by AAP councillors. Upset over ticket denial, former MP Pawan Kumar Bansal stayed away from campaigning for Tiwari. However, this did not affect Tiwari’s electoral prospects. Tiwari repeatedly raised the issue of nominated councillor Anil Masih, who had tampered with eight ballot papers to help the BJP candidate win the mayoral election. Tandon or other BJP leaders could not strongly oppose the issue. The former Union minister also repeatedly cornered Tandon over the debate challenge and said how would he face 543 MPs when he could not debate with him. During the campaign, Tiwari effectively highlighted the party’s guarantees like free water, electricity and Rs 1 lakh per year to every poor family.