Delhi election campaign: Amit Shah emerges as BJP’s face!

Union Home Minister Amit Shah is sweating it out in Delhi to regain his winning ways after BJP lost power in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.

And if people of the National Capital Territory are indeed influenced by his campaign and vote on the basis of what he has been busy telling them, it would seem that the election to the Delhi Assembly would, by and large, decide whether Arvind Kejriwal has been lying about his government’s performance. But what if they don’t?

While television and newspaper headlines show Shah’s obsession with Shaheen Bagh as his main and polarising card for the forthcoming elections, a detailed analysis of five of his recent public speeches at different venues reveals something else, that Shah knows that voters of Delhi may not buy the Shaheen Bagh theme, and go for real issues that touch their lives.

At all these venues—Rithala, Janakpuri Babarpur,Chattarpur, RK Puram, Najafgarh, Bijaswan and Palam – Shah has spent more time and pitched more ferociously in attacking the Delhi Chief Minister, than in raising the Shaheen Bagh issue, which seems to have been more for effects and drama, and almost invariably as an aside.

On the other hand, Shah has called Kejriwal a liar many times, charged him with indulging in vote bank politics, not delivering on his promises –of 8 lakh jobs and 15 lakh CCTVs, according to Shah.

The BJP leader has also charged the Delhi chief minister with not implementing the Aayushman Bharat Scheme that would have benefitted, he said, the people of the capital. He has gone into great details on the state of government schools and the mohalla clinics – timed with other party leaders raising one or the other of these issues.

He has dared the Delhi chief minister to take a dip in the Yamuna to show how clean the water is, and also to drink its water, before talking about the quality of the free water supplied by the Delhi government.

Shah speaks about two points in favour of his party. Again, the first is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has legalised 1731 unauthorised colonies, giving ownership of the tenements to 40 to 50 lakh people. It is only then that the Home Minister talks about the BJP government’s ‘achievements’ such as abolishing Art 370, getting a favourable judgement to build the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, and now the CAA.

Yes, he dares Kejriwal to stand in protest at Shaheen Bagh ahead of the polls, so that the people can decide on his stand. He does ask voters to press the BJP symbol on the EVMs so hard that the people of Shaheen Bagh feel the current. Shah also asks the crowd whether they are with Shaheen Bagh or the son of India.

But in totality, Shah seems to know that while he is almost expected to whip up passions of his partymen at the rallies, people may well be lukewarm to his polarising talks.