Delhi polls: BJP declares Harsh Vardhan as party's CM candidate

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Parliamentary Board on Wednesday named Dr Harsh Vardhan as its party’s chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming 4 December Delhi elections. Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, BJP President Rajnath Singh said the decision taken was unanimous. “After considering all factors the central parliamentary board has decided that Dr Harsh Vardhan should be presented as the party’s chief ministerial candidate,” Singh said. During the BJP’s administration of Delhi, Harsh Vardhan’s work had been noted not only in the nation’s capital but across the country, the BJP president said. “I had spoken Vijay Goel who is the Delhi unit chief and he had said that Harsh Vardhan should be the Chief ministerial candidate,” he said. The meeting of the Parliamentary Board now puts an official seal to the decision many say had already been taken. The long delay in picking Harsh Vardhan was also seen as having hurt the BJP’s campaign in a personality-driven contest now featuring incumbent chief minister Sheila Dikshit and the Aam Aadmi Party challenger Arvind Kejriwal. [caption id=“attachment_1188643” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The BJP Parliamentary Board will be meeting today. PTI[/caption] Sources said the party leadership had been waiting for Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley to return from his two-week tour of the United States before the announcement could be made. Jaitley’s preference for Harsh Vardhan is also well known. December’s Assembly election in the capital is seen as a semi-final of sorts before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Despite some exceptions, by and large, there is a belief that the result of the Delhi poll usually reflects the mood of the nation. As the capital city, there is also tremendous symbolism attached with the Delhi Assembly poll outcome. The party leadership had until a couple of weeks ago maintained that the party may not announce a CM candidate immediately, with Delhi in-charge Nitin Gadkari even indicating that the decision could be left until after the polls, a course correction was in order. While Narendra Modi had been of the opinion that a formal decision on the chief ministerial candidate should be done immediately, there were pros and cons to weigh – the biggest being the outcome of upsetting serving Delhi BJP president Vijay Goel who had projected himself as the frontrunner. Modi’s intervention appears to have sealed Goel’s fate. Speaking to Firstpost earlier, Dr Harsh Vardhan had admitted that it was important for the party to clearly project a CM-candidate. “I strongly feel that in today’s time apart from knowing the party’s ideology, the people like to also have a clear idea of the that party’s face for the top post to assess whether or not he has the potential to be the leader to work for their welfare.” Asked if the party may have lost valuable time in the negotiations and the efforts to assuage the fears of Goel, Harsh Vardhan had said “It is for the party to assess. My personal view is that we are running against time.”