Rajouri Garden victory is just the trailer, we will sweep Delhi civic polls: Delhi BJP President Manoj Tiwari

Manoj Tiwari, Delhi BJP president, doesn’ t take much time to strike a chord with people, especially if the audience happens to be migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. "Ka haal ba bhaiya (How are you)?" he asks a restive crowd at Raja Garden in West Delhi in Bhojpuri, and the flock breaks into hysteria. Hundreds of them at Vasia Tarapur in Raja Garden municipal ward have been waiting since dawn to catch a glimpse of the Bhojpuri-singer-actor who arrived in his Vijay Vikas Rath at around 10.30 am on Tuesday.
"Bharat Mata Ki Jai" screams one of the BJP volunteers standing next to Tiwari on the makeshift stage, which started creaking as BJP members and hangers-on thronged onto it in a hunt for a selfie with the actor. "Bhaiya thoda neeche utar jaiye (Please get off the stage)," pleads Tiwari. Suddenly, the stage collapses. Tiwari somehow manages to grab the mike and asks people around: "Kisi ko chot to nahin aayi (Has anybody been hurt)?" and then promptly gets down to the agenda for the day. "We will have to teach the Aam Aadmi Party a lesson for not taking care of Delhi." The crowd starts chanting "Modi Zindabad".

The BJP has been heading the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for 10 years; this time it has chosen not to give tickets to any of the 153 sitting councillors for the polls on April 23. Is it because of poor performance? Tiwari rubbishes all charges of corruption levelled against MCD. Delhi government’s budget, he claims, is Rs.48,000 crore, of which MCD gets Rs. 9,000 crore. However, last year, it got only Rs.2,800 crore.



"How do you expect MCD to perform when it doesn’t get its amount," he asks. The AAP is unfazed by the recent embarrassing by-poll loss — where the BJP-Akali Dal candidate Manjinder Singh Sirsa won by 14,652 votes and the AAP candidate lost his security deposit. AAP claims it isn’t out. "People are sick and tired of dealing with a corrupt and inefficient MCD," says Ashish Talwar, AAP’s Delhi in-charge. "We are confident that Delhi will vote for us. Delhi is the only state in India where school fees of private schools have not been hiked in the past two years," he asserts.

As the BJP and the AAP gear up for a showdown on April 23, the Congress might emerge as a surprise package. The Grand Old Party took everybody by surprise by relegating the AAP to a distant third. Top spot, though, may be a different ballgame altogether.

For Manoj Tiwari, the latest victory in Rajouri Garden by-poll could not have come at a better time. "Bhajpa dil main hai, Bhajpa Dilli main hai (BJP is in our heart, BJP is in Delhi)," says the exuberant Bhojpuri singer-actor-turned politician who was made president of the Delhi BJP unit last December.

Member of Parliament from North-east Delhi, which has a sizeable migrant population from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Tiwari claims that the BJP will sweep the forthcoming civic polls in Delhi on April 23. Edited excerpts from an interview:

The latest by-poll victory comes at a good time, just a few days before the MCD polls.
The victory in Rajouri Garden is just the trailer. You will get to see the movie when the results of MCD polls are announced later this month. The people of Delhi have rejected the fascist Tughlaqi ruler Arvind Kejriwal and AAP, and have shown faith in the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

You have given a ticket to a slum dweller who turned out to be a ‘millionaire’.
What’s wrong with it? Why do we have to live with this imagery that slum dwellers are beggars? I didn’t know she was a millionaire. And even if she is, what’s wrong with it? Can’t people from slums be rich? They are as hard-working as any other person, and this controversy has been raked up by the Aam Aadmi Party which doesn’t have any issue to fight the election. In fact, they have erected banners in Delhi where Kejriwal is pitted against our party member Vijendra Gupta.

Are they scared of Narendra Modi?
Yes. That’s why they are not taking him on. Ask them to fight with me. I am the Delhi president of the BJP. So they should talk to me.

Is Delhi BJP under pressure after the recent performance in Uttar Pradesh?
There is absolutely no kind of pressure. We will sweep the Delhi civic polls. People of Delhi made the blunder of voting for a grossly incompetent party like AAP and now they want to rectify it. This civic election is like a semi-final before the next assembly elections in Delhi. And we will win the semis as well as the final under the guidance of Modi and Amit Shah.

What are the main issues in this civic polls?
The biggest issue is to work honestly and sincerely for the people of Delhi. The state government doesn’t work and doesn’t let those in municipal bodies work properly. A massive victory in civic polls will only pave the way for a prosperous and clean Delhi.

Why did the BJP decide to give tickets to new faces?
We felt that there was a need to bring in young, vibrant people to serve Delhi.