Delhi Election

BJP’S DELHI DEBACLE
-SANJOG MAHEHWARI
Contrary to all the speculations, the Congress has won the battle of ballots in Delhi. Poll results did not favour BJP which got only 23 seats in the State Assembly elections against 40 to 45 projected as safe estimate whereas the rival Congress got 42 not thought of by the party in its wildest dream; certainly not after 26/11-“ Mumbai-carnage ”. The reasons that factored in the clear sweep of the poll-results in favour of the Congress party are obvious: (1) the sixth-pay commission bonanza to government servants and pensioners that swayed the voting pattern of a sizeable segment of this community in favour of the Congress party could not have been granted at a better time (2) “Minority” votes which in the earlier Corporation poll got divided among the political parties with persuasions similar to those of Congress, this time around, went solidly en-block in favour of the party (3) the projection of Mr.V.K. Malhotra, an aging leader, as BJP’s candidate for the C.M’s post; though the presence of a lesser number of the “minority” voters in his constituency ensured his own victory, and (4) Low-key campaigning by the complacent B.J.P
leadership on local issues and problems that render the life of a common man unbearably miserable such as: unsustainable, unplanned haphazard development and crass urbanization, ever increasing air pollution which has since scaled greater heights being more than pre-C.N.G. level, still more polluted Jamuna-lifeline of Delhi- waters even after spending hundreds of crores on implementation of the Jamuna Action Plan, traffic-choked Delhi roads with frequent traffic jams and snarl-ups lasting for hours on end, bumper to bumper cars inching their way on the traffic-chocked roads and belching volumes of carbon-dioxide all the while in the atmosphere, total absence of proper parking facilities in the colonies, people losing life and limb in routinely happening road-rages, elderly and ladies living in a totally unsecured and unsafe environment constantly exposed to murder, rape, loot and other heinous crimes , frequent power failures, sewage-contaminated low-pressure piped water supply, spurious drug racket- the list of woes of an average Delhiites is virtually endless. The Congress government even in its last ten long years of rule could not take on them headlong. That, and many such other unsettling matters such as rampant corruption, poor quality service provided by the government agencies, overcrowded metro, killer Blue-line monster etc. plaguing the life of an average Delhiite, should have provided enough ammunition to the B.J.P,. But, perhaps, BJP leadership also had been equally oblivious of the woes and the plight of the common man. Important though all these matters were and are from a Delhi citizen’s point of view, he certainly did not allow them to overshadow the tragic saga of death, devastation and destruction authored by the most inhuman carnage in recent history- the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai, which was nothing short of an attack on India. The bitter truth, however, remains that no party has any plans for the ‘Big Change’- a radical overhaul of our debased political system of governance- to set the house in order in the first instance, that only can empower the Indian nation to stand as one man against such carnage and deter it. -SANJOG MAHESHWARI