For Delhi polls, BJP targets AAP’s core voter bases: Poor and women

Taking a leaf out of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) election strategy in Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to chip away at some of its voter base before the assembly elections in the national capital.

The BJP’s target, to end its 26-year-long struggle to regain power in the national capital, seems to be the financially poor sections, Scheduled Castes (SC), and women.

Target JJ clusters

Senior BJP leaders have apparently advised all its Delhi leaders to stay in JJ (Jhuggi-Jhopri) Clusters (shanties) in the evenings and talk to the people to understand their problems and demands from the state government.

According to the plan, senior BJP leaders will visit all the 235 slum clusters in Delhi before the polls that are due in February next year. The BJP is trying to woo a chunk of the 17 per cent SC voters in Delhi to defeat the AAP, which enjoys the support of not only the SCs but also the 13 per cent Muslim population of the capital.

Also read: Poll trends in favour of Mahayuti because of Ladki Bahin scheme: Shinde

Focus on AAP’s “false promises”

These elections are crucial for the BJP because it has been out of power in Delhi since 1998, when the late Sushma Swaraj was the chief minister. The national capital has proven to be one of the most difficult areas for the BJP. Even though it has consistently won all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi since 2014, that outcome gets mysteriously reversed in the assembly polls.

“The entire BJP is trying to reach out to the people in the slum clusters, especially in the areas where the SC communities live. The effort is to convey to the people that the AAP government’s slogan of free water and electricity has not reached them,” RP Singh, national spokesperson and former Delhi MLA, told The Federal.

“People should know that the AAP government has made false promises to the people living in the slums and, when the BJP comes to power, the people of Delhi will be able to benefit from the Union government’s health scheme, which provides an insurance cover of Rs 5 lakhs,” Singh added.

Aim to end Opposition narrative

With less than three months left for the Delhi elections, senior BJP leaders are also trying to counter the Congress-led INDIA bloc’s campaign that the BJP is trying to change the Constitution. BJP leaders believe that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) suffered in the Lok Sabha polls largely because of that.

Also read: How 'Ladli Behna' scheme helped BJP-led Mahayuti retain power in Maharashtra

The BJP central leadership has now decided that all states and Union Territories should specifically reach out to the SC communities and explain to them that the Opposition is involved in spreading a fake narrative against the NDA, and the BJP in particular.

“During the Constitution Day celebrations, we decided to spend the evening with the SC community members and also stay there during the night. The aim is to assure them that they have nothing to be worried about, and the BJP will protect their rights given under the Constitution. We are trying to tell the SC communities that the BJP does not intend to change the Constitution and they should not believe in the Opposition campaign,” Singh revealed.

Women and Ladli Behna scheme

The BJP’s other target is the women of Delhi. After the immense success of Ladli Behna Yojna in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Haryana, the BJP leadership is now planning to promise a similar scheme for the women of Delhi.

Ladli Behna has proved to be a gamechanger for the BJP, as the scheme of providing money directly into the bank accounts of women by the state government has helped the BJP win at least three difficult state elections.

While reaching out to women in the slum clusters of Delhi, the BJP is also likely to promise free gas cylinders and women-centric programmes for those working in the unorganised sector in Delhi.

Also read: female voters

The fight over the women voters of Delhi is interesting because while the BJP is focusing on programmes such as Ladli Behna, the AAP government has already launched the Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana, which also promises to transfer money into the bank accounts of women.

Political analysts feel that while these are early days to talk about the impact of these initiatives, the election in Delhi will be a direct contest between Arvind Kejriwal and the BJP.

“The AAP has decided to make Atishi the chief minister of Delhi, while the political outreach will be handled by Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia. This is an interesting strategy because it allows Atishi to focus on governance and gives more time to Kejriwal and Sisodia to focus on the political campaign before the polls. The AAP’s election campaign has already started, and Kejriwal is leading it with a more focused approach,” Abhay Kumar Dubey, author and professor at CSDS, told The Federal.