Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah was scheduled to meet his party legislators in Delhi yesterday evening in the latest bid to ramp up numbers for forming a government in the Capital.
Amid reports that lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung might invite the saffron party to form the government, the BJP has sent out mixed signals on the issue.
The party has said though it will go all out to get enough support, it will not mind fresh elections either.
“Individuals (from other parties) are in touch with the BJP to offer support (to form the government), but we are also ready to face elections even if they are held tomorrow,” said BJP Delhi president Satish Upadhyay.
Delhi is under President’s rule following Kejriwal’s resignation from the chief minister’s post in mid-February along with his ministers. The AAP leader had stepped down, accusing the BJP and the Congress, which had given Kejriwal’s government outside support, of joining hands to stall a key anti-graft bill.
As the BJP camp geared up for the meeting with Shah, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) stepped up attack on the BJP. AAP leaders were supposed to meet the President in the evening, to request him to thwart any attempt by the BJP to form a government.
Ahead of the visit to Rashtrapati Bhawan, former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal once again accused the BJP of trying to form the government through “horse-trading.”
In the 70-member Delhi House, the BJP and its ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has 29 MLAs, down from 32 after its legislators Harsh Vardhan, Ramesh Bidhuri and Pravesh Verma were elected to the Lok Sabha. The AAP has 28 members and the Congress has eight.
Kejriwal said his party will seek the President’s intervention to ensure that the saffron party does not get an invitation “under any circumstances” from Jung.
“How will BJP form government? Naturally, BJP wants to form government through horse-trading, by buying MLAs which is totally wrong. They want to buy MLAs using money power, at Rs. 20 crore each,” he alleged.