New Delhi, Feb. 11: Amit Shah was so "mortified" by the scale of the BJP's Delhi debacle that he barely smiled, seldom spoke, cut out the ceremonial fripperies and did away with the music and the firecrackers, said guests who went for his son Jay's wedding in Ahmedabad yesterday.
The BJP president was so preoccupied with the election results that, on the sidelines of the celebrations, he even went into a huddle with some BJP guests who had flown in from Delhi.
Shah reportedly shared his "unhappiness" over how his party's seven MPs from Delhi had either "under-performed" or not worked at all. He said he proposed to meet them individually and seek explanations as soon as he returned from Gujarat.
Maheish Girri, the MP from East Delhi and a Sri Sri Ravi Shankar adherent, left for Mumbai midway through the campaign. Manoj Tiwari, the Bhojpuri singer from North East Delhi, initially carped aloud after Kiran Bedi was named chief minister candidate and surfaced occasionally at public meetings.
Parvesh Sahib Verma from West Delhi was reportedly criticised by the Jats of Outer Delhi villages for never dropping by. A national leader claimed the Jats recalled how Parvesh's late father, Sahib Singh Verma, who was also Delhi chief minister, was there in their villages almost every evening to smoke a hookah and have dinner. "They spoke of how every time he learnt that someone in a village was unhappy with him, he would immediately come over to find out what the problem was. His son, by contrast, came across as apathetic," the source said.
Harsh Vardhan, the Chandni Chowk MP, was the only legislator who was commended for "working hard" for Bedi, who contested from his former Assembly seat.
"Canards were spread on how Harsh Vardhan was indifferent. But among all our MPs, he was the only sincere worker. I know even Bedi's husband didn't spare him for her defeat. The truth is even if he had put in 24x7 work, he would have been helpless against the pro-AAP wave," a former BJP MLA of Delhi said.
Even before Shah's "introspection" exercise, Ramlal, the BJP's general secretary, organisation, was told by the RSS to take feedback from candidates, compile, study the data and identify the root causes.
Ramlal, a Sangh appointee in the BJP's central organisation and a conduit between the parent and its political progeny, has either met or phoned the candidates, 67 of whom lost. RSS activists let it be known loudly that the BJP - like the Congress - might have been reduced to a cipher but for the "dedication" of swayamsevaks (volunteers) and pracharaks (whole-timers).
"To our dismay, a week before polling, we discovered that BJP workers were sitting at home, doing nothing. Most of the panna pramukhs, each tasked to contact 50 voters in a constituency, hadn't stirred. Their grouse was their family members, who had worked for generations with the BJP, were given a wide berth while lateral entrants from the AAP and the Congress were given all the importance," a Delhi RSS activist said.
"The workers asked, are we to paste posters and organise mikes and chairs for (Narendra) Modi's and Shah's meetings all our lives like our fathers and grandfathers or can we hope to get tickets sometime? But the Sangh realised it must salvage the situation. So its volunteers started reaching out to voters. It was a bit too late," he rued.
