Old World Harm

Delhi has changed rapidly in the last decade. Unfortunately for the BJP, its chief ministerial candidate Madan Lal Khurana has not. In 1993, when Khurana became Delhi's first chief minister after the union territory was given an assembly, he was a well-liked and fairly popular figure. His resignation in 1996 in the wake of the hawala charges, of which he was cleared some years later, had marked the beginning of the decline of the BJP in the national capital. Khurana's successor Sahib Singh Verma was uniformly disliked and the BJP's last-ditch attempt to replace him with Sushma Swaraj could not prevent the party from crashing to a humiliating defeat in 1998.

That is why a year ago, the BJP high command was forced to project Khurana as the chief ministerial candidate in 2003—only to rue the decision some months later. "Now 67 years old, Khurana's brand of mohalla (neighbourhood) politics simply does not click in the new millennium," says a BJP general secretary. And in the age of 24-hour news channels, Khurana comes off badly on TV. Particularly when compared to the Congress' more elegant and personable CM, Sheila Dikshit.

Khurana's politics too is old-fashioned. He pursues a short-sighted populist line, protecting every possible interest group in the city. For instance, he was against the shifting of polluting industries, resisted converting diesel vehicles to the environment-friendly cng, fiercely fought against the imposition of vat, and often speaks out against the demolition of slum clusters. As a veteran Delhi MP says, "In pursuit of small gains, Khurana has lost sight of the big picture. The BJP's support base is the middle class, not slum-dwellers. But today Khurana appears to be out of sync with the aspirations of this class. Unlike Dikshit, he is not seen as a modern media-savvy politician."

Why then has the BJP persisted in projecting Khurana as its man in Delhi? Partly because a sulking Khurana, who still has a formidable grip over the party organisation, has the potential to cause enormous damage. Says Vijay Jolly, the vice president of the Delhi unit: "You can't write off a veteran like Khurana." Besides, others interested in the top job, such as Verma, Vijay Goel and V.K. Malhotra, are also unlikely to set the Yamuna on fire.

The two leaders who do have the potential to tackle Dikshit are not keen on the job. Sushma Swaraj was piqued for months when she was asked to be leader of the opposition in Delhi. The BJP eventually ensured Sushma's return to national politics via the Rajya Sabha. Arun Jaitley is the other Delhi resident who some BJP strategists believe could be a winning candidate. But Jaitley is now too big a fish for the small Delhi pond. An important player at the national level, he does not have the temperament for local politics.

So, the party continues with its old warhorse. Khurana insists: "You must not write me off so early." Sadly for him, many of his party colleagues are doing just that.