President of the
Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) state unit, Vijay Goel has changed post Oct 23
when the party elected former state health minister Harsh Vardhan as Delhi’s
chief ministerial candidate instead of him.
Although nothing was
official, but everybody had assumed that Goel would be the CM candidate
including him. He had started campaigning actively and was visiting even the
smallest districts of the city.
But the announcement
left him shocked and upset.
A miffed Goel then
threatened to resign from his post if Harsh Vardhan was selected as the chief
minister but had to comply with the decision following orders from the party
high command.
Days later, BJP leader
Rajnath Singh said that Goel had “accepted Harsh Vardhan's candidature” and
that all was well in the state unit of the party.
But that was not to
be.
The once feisty Goel
hardly smiled and seemed disinterested. The situation was made worse by
reporters who were now more interested in getting a quote or a byte from Harsh
Vardhan instead of Goel.
Meanwhile, as the
countdown began for Dec 4, instead of intensifying his campaigning as party
president, Goel restricted himself to just holding press conferences in the
party office and issuing press releases.
The party then directed
Nitin Gadkari to take over and do Goel’s job.
In fact, in one of the
rooms at the party headquarters, where press conferences are held regularly,
there is a hoarding of Goel in the background and some party workers had asked
senior leaders to replace it with a new one showing Harsh Vardhan and Goel
together.
But the party turned
down the proposal as they knew that would aggravate the matter.
Similarly, in the
party’s manifesto, Harsh Vardhan and BJP’s the prime ministerial candidate
Narendra Modi were shown prominently while other national and local leaders
including Goel got little space.
Days later, Goel’s
close aide—Ashok Goel contesting from Model Town came out with a manifesto for
his constituency which had prominent pictures of Malhotra along with Goel,
Rajnath Singh and Modi.
This time Harsh
Vardhan was in the background along with other leaders.
It is evident that
Goel is not quite comfortable in the presence of Harsh Vardhan and that is why
he is seldom seen alongside the chief ministerial candidate leave alone talking
or discussing issues with him.
In the wake of the
party announcing names of its 62 of the 70 candidates Nov 6, supporters of some
leaders who did not get a ticket protested at the party's state headquarters.
The workers of one
such candidate-- Sarita Choudhary, mayor of the South Delhi Municipal
Corporation, stormed the conference room in the party office and broke a couple
of chairs as they raised slogans and climbed atop tables.
Instead of tackling
the situation together, Goel along with party leaders Vijender Gupta and V.K.
Malhotra fled the scene while Harsh Vardhan, left alone to fend for himself was
heckled by the crowd.
The only saving grace
for the BJP, according to party members is that Harsh Vardhan is a
non-confrontational leader.
Meanwhile, there is
also a belief amongst many, that Goel is largely responsible for the situation
he is in at present as he wanted to set up a parallel structure in the party
with his own people and this did not go down well the high command.
Assuming that he would
be the CM candidate when there was no official declaration was just one of the
many slip-ups and his wings had to be clipped.
Now it would be a matter of great interest to see if this
infighting will hurt the party in Dec 4 assembly polls, the results of which
will be announced Dec 8.
