Focus on Jats, Gujjars, drawing room meetings: How BJP clawed its way back in rural Delhi

Head of the Delhi BJP OBC Morcha Sunil Yadav told The Indian Express that the enactment adopted a antithetic strategy and cornered astir fractional of the OBC ballot successful these areas. “We created 24 groups of 52 OBC groups similar Jats, Gujjars, Yadavs, Sainis, Prajapatis and Ramgarhias. This astir accounts to 50% of the colonisation and concerns of each assemblage were addressed,” helium said.

Yadav said astir 24,000 radical were reached via sammelans (large meetings) isolated from drafting country meetings of 10 radical each. “Around 65,000 radical uploaded these meetings and these reached an estimated 1 lakh people,” the BJP person said.

Ahead of the polls too, the BJP got a changeable successful the limb aft leaders of 360 villages of Delhi, successful a mahapanchayat connected December 22 past twelvemonth successful Mangolpuri Kalan, departed from their earlier basal of boycotting the polls and decided to “support the enactment that would fulfil their demands”.

On February 1, days earlier the February 5 polls, Suresh Solanki, caput of the “Palam 360” – which claims to correspond each 360 villages and the 36 communities inhabiting them – met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and extended enactment to the BJP.

The BJP’s tweaked strategy arsenic good arsenic the enactment of the “Palam 360” seemingly bore effect arsenic the enactment won 13 of the 18 seats, six of them with an implicit 50% margin, arsenic against the lone spot it won 5 years ago.

The triumph was truthful resounding that a conception of BJP leaders, including Solanki, person demanded that the adjacent Chief Minister beryllium chosen from the agrarian belt. “AAP ka safaya ho gaya hai, kyunki AAP ne humari baatein nahi suni… Hamein lagta hai Dilli dehat se banna chahiye koi CM (AAP was swept distant due to the fact that they didn’t perceive to us… We consciousness idiosyncratic from agrarian Delhi should go the CM),” Solanki said.

In presumption of ballot stock too, the BJP saw a vastly improved show successful the agrarian belt, garnering 44.68% of the votes arsenic compared to the 37.93% it got 5 years earlier. On the contrary, the AAP saw its tally dip from 17 to 5 successful these seats, portion its ballot stock fell from 56.23% successful 2020 to 43.03%.

The BJP’s campaigner enactment excessively reflected its changed strategy. The party’s elephantine slayer and Jat look Parvesh Verma, who defeated AAP main Arvind Kejriwal from New Delhi and is seen to beryllium a frontrunner for the CM’s post, hails from the area. He has antecedently served arsenic the MP of West Delhi, which encompasses agrarian seats similar Madipur, Matiala and Najafgarh.

In the 2013 Assembly polls, helium had successfully contested from Mehrauli, different spot falling successful the agrarian belt. Parvesh’s begetter and erstwhile Delhi CM Sahib Singh Verma excessively represented the Outer Delhi Lok Sabha constituency, which falls successful the agrarian belt, betwixt 1999 and 2004.

The enactment fielded different Jat look and erstwhile Delhi curate Kailash Gahlot, who discontinue the AAP months up of the polls, from the Bijwasan seat. He defeated his erstwhile enactment workfellow Surender Bhardwaj by implicit 11,000 votes portion successful the SC-reserved spot of Madipur, the BJP’s Kailash Gangwal defeated erstwhile Deputy Speaker Rakhi Birla.

Though Ramesh Bidhuri, the BJP’s Gujjar face, narrowly mislaid to erstwhile Delhi CM Atishi successful Kalkaji, it showed that the enactment was focused connected the Jat and Gujjar populations successful the 18 seats of the agrarian belt.

Solanki present hopes that the caller BJP authorities volition summation ellipse complaint from the existing Rs 53 lakh per acre to Rs 5 crore, abolish location tax, springiness ownership rights of plots allotted to landless workers, and repeal Sections 33 and 81 of the Delhi Land Reforms Act.

About his method of campaigning, Solanki claimed reaching radical with the connection was key. “I person 5 WhatsApp groups which person astir 5,000 members from the villages of Delhi. Apart from this each the 360 villages person WhatsApp groups of their own. In an hr I tin marque a connection scope each the villages,” helium said.