Harsh Vardhan: The clean, Muslim-friendly face BJP needs in Delhi

On the day of the Delhi Assembly election, BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Dr Harsh Vardhan had to get out of his car to walk the last stretch to the polling station in his constituency, Krishna Nagar. The station, a local primary school inside an alleyway, was too narrow for his Toyota Fortuner. As Vardhan walked towards the school with a couple of security personnel and a few followers, another small crowd emerged at the end of the lane. At the center was a slightly built man in spectacles, VK Monga, the Congress candidate for Vardhan’s seat. Monga had joined the Congress just prior to the election, ending a long association with the Bharatiya Janta Party’s Delhi unit. The two men studiously avoided eye contact. The bad blood between the men was not just a matter of party affiliation, but also a personal animosity. Monga before quitting the party had sent a letter to then Delhi BJP chief, Vijay Goel, stating his displeasure with Harsh Vardhan. [caption id=“attachment_1381875” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] BJP leader Harsh Vardhan. Naresh Sharma/Firstpost[/caption] “As long as people like Harsh Vardhan are there at the helm of affairs, BJP cannot come to power in Delhi,” he said in the resignation letter to Vijay Goel. According to sources, Goel made a mild effort to stop Monga from quitting the party but failed. The reason can be traced from Monga’s letter itself. “I tried meeting the top brass of BJP and tell them about the situation, but in vain,” he wrote in his letter that he was of the view that Harsh Vardhan is incapable as a leader. Ironically, Goel would soon be replaced by Harsh Vardhan. Harsh Vardhan, a longtime member of the RSS, has always been a prominent member of the Delhi’s BJP unit because of his clean image and reputation as a people’s man. It is said that during his tenure as the health minister in Delhi in the earlier BJP government, he was one of the most accessible politicians in the city. BJP’s key projection before the assembly election in 2013 was also Harsh Vardhan’s anti polio drive as the health minister of Delhi. The success of the campaign later made the central government take it up as the model for the country. BJP insiders claim that it was a mistake not to project Harsh Vardhan as the CM candidate earlier. “BJP was nowhere close to winning the 32 seats it ended with had it not been for two things – the projection of Doctor Saab (as Vardhan is known popularly) and Narendra Modi’s rallies in the city prior to the assembly election,” says a BJP member in Delhi known to be close to HarshVardhan. Other observers are of the same view. “Look at the other BJP leaders in Delhi; Vijay Jolly or Vijender Gupta or the likes. If there is a fight with someone like Arvind Kejriwal, who is known for his honesty and anti corruption stand, how can a political party project their usual suspects whose public perception is not more than a guy who publicly vandalises people’s houses,” says a journalist in Delhi familiar with BJP’s affairs. According to sources, HarshVardhan a member of the RSS for over last 40 years, enjoys immense support from the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. He has been known to be close to Arun Jaitley, as well. “Jaitley and some of the top leaders were not very happy the way Vijay Goel before the elections were projecting himself for the assembly election in Delhi,” says a source in the BJP. Sushma Swaraj, who earlier supported Goel in the party also changed her inclination once HarshVardhan’s name came to the fray. Vardhan was inevitably backed by the Sangh and Nitin Gadkari, who was responsible for overseeing the Delhi assembly election. But Harsh Vardhan’s ascent is not merely due to political connections. He enjoys enormous popular support across all section of voters. “The Aam Aadmi Party has helped me to acquire a new auto and gave me legal help when I was booked by the police but how could I not vote for HarshVardhan who got my daughter married and helped me to build a house without paying a bribe to the corporation babus,” said Surinderpal Malhotra, an auto driver before the elections when asked if he was going to vote for the Aam Aadmi Party. Harsh Vardhan is as popular among the Muslims. Khureji, a Muslim ghetto in Krishna Nagar vouched for him. Krishna Nagar, where the Muslim community accounts for  more than 18 percent of the voters, showed the door to the AAP candidate, who was a Muslim lawyer. The current BJP MLAs are also unanimously supporting the leadership of Harsh Vardhan. Some of them claim that there has long been a push within the party to oust Goel. The cracks became visible when a large number of party members including Harsh Vardhan and senior leaders like Ramesh Bidhuri, an MLA from Okhla, skipped a meet called by Goel last week. One day later the high command of the party declared Harsh Vardhan the new chief of the BJP’s Delhi unit.