States: Delhi; Faint Hope

India Today
October 26,1998

DELHI
Faint Hope

Faced with the prospect of defeat in the coming polls, the BJP is banking on Sushma Swaraj.

By Sayantan Chakravarty

She is on a desperate image-building exercise. Promising to flood the market with reasonably priced onions and vowing to make Delhi a safer place. But if she's spending sleepless nights pursuing errant policemen, it's because as the new chief minister of Delhi, Sushma Swaraj has little choice.

It is not an assignment she sought. Certainly not after an internal poll commissioned by the BJP showed that the image of chief minister Sahib Singh Verma -- and that of the party -- was at an all time low, portending a poor result in the forthcoming polls. Sushma didn't want to come in just six weeks before polling and face the possibility of being reduced to the leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly instead of the minister in charge of information and broadcasting and communication.

The fact that Verma's image topped the list of negatives was the very reason that the party contemplated a change at the helm. But that change was delayed, thanks to a reluctant RSS. Sushma herself was not keen because she was afraid the Congress would proclaim that the change was in itself an acceptance of defeat.

Khurana with Sahib Singh Verma "The choice was between a defeat and a rout,'' says a senior BJP functionary about the change, pointing to the five main issues that have come to mark the party's rule in the capital -- spiralling onion prices, dropsy epidemic, the power crisis, the transport strike and a deteriorating law and order situation. Hope is now being pinned on Sushma who is desperately cracking the whip, even driving into police stations in the dead of night when that really is under Home Minister L. K. Advani's jurisdiction. But that perhaps is the only quarter she's getting unconditional support from.

It's an uphill task all the way. A mere 6 per cent swing -- not an uncommon occurrence in urban constituencies -- will see a Congress majority in Delhi. But there are other pressing matters on Sushma's agenda. She is keen to make peace with an angry Verma, who was forced to step down, and Madan Lal Khurana, the other hopeful who could not make it back to the chief minister's chair. "I have their full support,'' claims Sushma, but knows that she has to contend with Verma who walked out of the prime minister's residence in a huff when the change was announced.

It's not a minor sulk with Verma. His supporters gheraoed the party office even before the evening of October 10 when Sushma was informed of the decision. Chary of annoying the Jat voters who are a crucial factor in as many as 19 constituencies, Vajpayee acceded to Verma's demand of making a public announcement that he would soon be inducted into the Union Cabinet even though the reshuffle had been put off. The second precondition too was taken care of -- Devendra Singh Shaukin, the MLA from the Nangloi Jat constituency, was sworn in, in an attempt to assuage the Jats in Outer Delhi. As many as 21 of the 70 assembly seats fall in the outer Delhi radius, an area that Verma nurtured during his term. Sushma started her own tenure by having lunch with Verma and dinner with Khurana. And though both are making the obvious noises of "there is no divide'', the party leadership is worried. The anti-Jat charge that Verma's supporters are making could also spill into neighbouring Rajasthan.

"I will extend all my support to Sushma. The party needs it to emerge victorious,'' says Verma but the view is not shared by his partymen. "It is difficult for the rural folk to hide their disappointment,'' says S.P. Rana, a legislator from Mahipalpur, a part of the rural belt. The disappointment has been made adequately clear through the hundreds of supporters who shouted slogans in support of Verma outside the party office and again at Sushma's swearing-in ceremony.

There is more ire from another direction. Sushma also has to contend with Haryana Lok Dal (Rashtriya) leader Om Prakash Chautala, who now says it's time for him to take a fresh look at the support he is lending to the Vajpayee Government at the Centre. He is as sore with Verma's ouster as he is with the fact that Sushma was chosen to replace him. Chautala resents her proximity with Bansi Lal, his main political rival in the state. And the questions he is asking are far from comfortable. "Why," for instance, as Chautala says, "make a sacrificial lamb out of Verma when you want to make a hero out of him the next day,'' alluding to the promised berth in the Union Cabinet.

The person enjoying Sushma's discomfiture the most is Delhi's Congress leader Sheila Dikshit. The whole rumpus has given her a much-needed election issue. "It is only a cosmetic change. But will the BJP's performance be easily forgotten by the voters?" she asks. It will certainly help the Congress to deal with the inertia that had set into the rank and file of a party which was otherwise hoping to reap the benefits of the anti-incumbency factor. Now, Dikshit has homed in on the "slighted" peasant class and is toying with the idea of fielding women candidates in a third of the seats to stress the importance her party attaches to women's issues. Misgovernance, however, is the main plank and as veteran Congress leader Jag Parvesh Chandra says, "We will tell the people that for five years there was a government. Then we will ask if there was an administration.''

By effecting a last minute change in leadership and BJP Vice-President K.L. Sharma's assertion that the voters have a right to know who the next chief minister would be in case the party comes to power, the BJP has also gone back on its decision of not projecting a chief minister.

"Winning Delhi is critical for the party,'' admits Sushma, only to quickly add, "We are sure of winning but we don't know by how many seats.'' The new chief minister plans to highlight in her election pitch the manner in which her party has grown from strength to strength since the 1991 Lok Sabha elections. That year, the BJP held four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. Two-and-a-half years later, in November 1993, it swept to power in the Delhi Assembly elections, pocketing 49 of the 70 Assembly seats. In the 1996 Lok Sabha polls it bagged five seats, increasing its strength to six in 1998. In between, in the 1997 municipal polls, the party won in 79 of the 134 wards.

This, however, may not be enough to bag the 36 seats the party needs to retain power. Unless, of course, the BJP can get the right community mix. Sikhs are going to be a factor in about a dozen seats in East and West Delhi, which is why a formal BJP-Akali alliance is imperative. Ultimately, the campaign will throw up issues like the transport strike which crippled Delhi, the dropsy deaths and the spiralling prices.

It is perhaps in realisation of this that Sushma started bustling almost as soon as she was sworn in. It isn't surprising either that her secretariat is talking of her "breezy style'' and "fastidiousness for punctuality''. Nor have her "priorities" come as a surprise. If she is making surprise checks at police stations or talking in terms of reopening mustard-crushing mills, it's merely a recognition of the problem areas. And an acknowledgement that time is running out.

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