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When many people within the BJP did not think that the saffron party had a real chance in the Delhi elections, it was Amit Shah’s confidence and his excellent team-building exercise that made the impossible possible, said sources
Union home minister Amit Shah during a roadshow ahead of the Delhi assembly elections. (File image/PTI)
Cometh the crisis, cometh the man. In yet another fierce electoral battle, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come out on top. And the man who delivered the goods yet again is none other than senior BJP leader and union home minister Amit Shah.
When many people within the BJP did not think that the saffron party had a real chance in the Delhi elections, it was Amit Shah’s confidence and his excellent team-building exercise that made the impossible possible, said sources. Not only did he stand shoulder to shoulder with party president JP Nadda in marshalling the resources for the polls, but he also designed a man-to-man marking strategy, boosting the BJP’s chances. Apart from the in-charges and party workers deployed on each seat, he ensured individual connects, keeping regional and caste equations in mind, for deployment. The saffron party had also fixed in-charges for each region, including northeast, south, and west, sending leaders to campaign at the grassroots level.
But what stood out was the strategy by Shah to set up a “Special 27″ team of members to take charge of the “most crucial” 51 constituencies. Not only were these people to work effectively behind the scenes but also focus on the effective formula that Amit Shah has seen delivering the goods relentlessly for the saffron party, and that is to manage the booths. These members not only assessed the situation on the ground but also worked hard to bridge the difference in votes from the Lok Sabha polls, where the BJP won all seven seats in Delhi, while assessing why the party would fall short in assembly elections. With their ears to the ground and focus intact, these 27 team members provided timely briefings directly to the home minister. His trusted lieutenants were at the top of their jobs: union ministers Bhupendra Yadav, Dharmendra Pradhan, and Piyush Goyal; general secretaries Vinod Tawde and Sunil Bansal; and BJP MPs Nishikant Dubey and Surendra Nagar were some of the members of the Special 27 team.
While Amit Shah himself campaigned against the “misrule” of the AAP government, calling out the alleged scams and highlighting the ruling party’s “inaction and failure to deliver on promises”, his timely meetings with the organisation working on the ground always provided the party workers with much-needed guidance and a practical approach. It was his confidence in leaders like Ramesh Bidhuri and Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma that convinced the party that these leaders could be fielded against the bigwigs of AAP, said sources. While Parvesh emerged as a giant slayer by defeating Arvind Kejriwal, Bidhuri gave incumbent chief minister Atishi a run for her money.
The victory in Delhi comes as the icing on the cake after Shah strategised improbable wins for his party and allies in Haryana and Maharashtra late last year.
Amit Shah made his presence felt as the BJP general secretary in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, where the party won a whopping 72 out of the total 80 seats. Following this, his much-talked-about stint as the party’s national president saw him orchestrate the BJP’s victories in election after election, including the stunning success in Tripura, overthrowing the Left government of two and a half decades. Amit Shah had the most successful run as a party president in a long, long time in India’s political history.
As the country’s home minister, he has left his mark through the abrogation of Article 370 sections in Jammu and Kashmir and overseeing the successful implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act.
