The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping to win big in the upcoming Delhi assembly elections 2025. The saffron party is eyeing a vote share of more than 50 per cent in the upcoming assembly polls, top BJP leaders told India Today citing internal surveys.
A senior leader said that the BJP has had a 30-33 per cent vote share in Delhi consistently but AAP has been winning assembly polls because it has been polling in more than 40 per cent vote share.
He added that this pattern, however, has changed since the last Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections.
"According to our survey, the Congress is gaining ground in Delhi, which will benefit us subsequently. The vote percentage polled against us will be divided between AAP and Congress," he claimed.
BJP leaders further added that the saffron party aims to achieve this by highlighting the 'Sheeshmahal' row, a controversy over the extravagant renovation of Arvind Kejriwal's official bungalow. The BJP believes that the controversy dented the AAP leaders' image in the voters' mind.
Moreover, the BJP is considering announcing over two big women-centric schemes to woo Delhi's women voters around the time of releasing its manifesto for the assembly polls.
The BJP is also confident that it will outdo AAP as far as women voters are concerned.
"Look what happened in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Maharashtra. Our women-centric issues have done wonders because we not only announce it but ensure that it gets implemented on the ground," a senior BJP leader said.
In order to achieve its ambitious targets, the BJP is also aiming to capitalise on the anti-incumbency sentiment against more than 50 AAP MLAs including Arvind Kejriwal, Atishi, and Manish Sisodia.
Sources within the party also claimed that the party leaders who joined AAP and have been announced as candidates were willing to join back the BJP if it announced them as official candidates from their respective constituencies.
"AAP has one advantage over us that it has only one decision maker who can decide on one go. But in BJP, we have a parliamentary board, which takes decisions on the party's official candidates," the unnamed BJP leader said.
Not just this, the party is also likely to field its former MPs against the top AAP leaders. These include Parvesh Verma, Meenakshi Lekhi and Ramesh Bidhuri.
The BJP is also likely to field its Delhi president Virender Sachdeva from Patparganj against AAP candidate Avadh Ojha. In Jangpura, the party is likely to field Impreet Bakshi against Manish Sisodia.
While Arvinder Singh Lovely may be fielded from Krishna Nagar, Manjinder Singh Sirsa would most likely contest from Rajouri Garden. The BJP will reveal its list of candidates only after the approval from the national leadership this week.
(With inputs from Piyush Mishra)