‘Big setback’, we will introspect: BJP on defeat in Delhi
New Delhi: Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi on Tues-day called up Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal and congratulated him on his thumping victory in Delhi and assured him of all support from the Centre for development of the national capital. “Spoke to @Arvind-Kejriwal & congratulated him on the win.
Assured him Centre’s complete support in the development of Delhi,” Modi tweeted. His tweet came as trends showed a massive victory for AAP in Delhi polls in which BJP was decimated. BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the last Assembly polls in December 2013.
Kejriwal, while thanking Modi for the greetings, said he would like to meet him soon to discuss issues related to Delhi. He told the Prime Minister that he will need the Centre’s help.
Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda said since the people have voted in favour of AAP, “it is the responsibility of the central government to give all assistance to AAP to run the Delhi government”. He said the people of Delhi should feel that both the Centre and state government have “joined hands” for the developmental activities in the national capital. He was asked to react on the results of the Delhi assembly election. After its humiliating defeat at the hands of AAP in Delhi polls, BJP on Tuesday admitted that it is a “big setback” and the party will soon intro-spect the reasons behind the dismal showing.
The party also said that Delhi’s loss is a “collective failure” of the party and the defeat cannot be thrown on any single individual, seen as an attempt to deflect any blame on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The party leaders while congratulating Arvind Kejriwal, hoped he will now fulfil the promises made to people and ensure develop-ment of Delhi even as the Centre promised to extend all its support to the new government.
“It is a big setback for us. We will assess the reasons of the defeat. We accept the verdict of the people and hope Kejriwal fulfils his promises made to people. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, the Centre will extend all its help to Delhi government,” BJP Spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said.Party general secretary P Murlidhar Rao said, “BJP’s defeat in Delhi elections is a collective fail-ure of our party. It cannot be thrown on any single individual. We all own the loss.””Election results for Delhi state is a setback for BJP. BJP accepts d(the) defeat in Delhi elections.
We respect the verdict n(and) positively cooperate with Delhi government on d development,” Rao tweeted.
He felt that since Haryana elections, where BJP got a majority, has not impacted Delhi polls. “Why Delhi elections will impact BJP in other states”.
“Extending d Verdict of Delhi elections to unrelated issues is like stretching too far. Central govt performa-nce was not d election issue,” he said in another tweet.Another BJP Spokesperson Nalin Kohli said the party will assess the reasons why the party failed to appeal to Delhi voters and hoped Kejriwal will fulfil all the promises made.
“It is a huge victory for AAP. BJP would certainly assess what were the reasons that we have not not been able to appeal to the voters of Delhi. We wish well for AAP for delivering on the promises made and give Delhi a good government,” he said.
Party’s Delhi unit chief Satish Upadhyay admitted that the party failed to understand the mood of the people. “We accept the mandate given by the people of Delhi. We failed to understand the mood of the people. BJP will conti-nue to serve the people as it had been doing in the past.
I congratulate Kejriwal on his victory,” Upadhyay said.Another party spokesperson G V L Narsimha Rao said the polls were a referendum on Kejri-wal and could not be seen as reflection on the perfo-rmance of the Modi govern-ment as local issues domi-nated the polls. (PTI)