The BJP is a bad loser. It can't digest defeat; does not believe in accepting loss with dignity. After losing three consecutive assembly elections in Delhi, the BJP was convinced that it would win a massive mandate from the people in the 2013 elections, but AAP foiled that attempt and it could not fulfil its ambition to rule Delhi though it emerged as the single largest party with 31 seats.
The 2015 assembly elections proved to be even more cruel. The BJP came crashing down from 31 seats to three. This was the worst ever defeat for the BJP despite the soaring popularity of Modi and a wave in their favour just a few months before in the parliamentary election.
It was torture for the party and traumatic for its local leaders. They all harboured ambitions of becoming either the Chief Minister or at least ministers. But they were upstaged by a party which, compared to them, is just a toddler in politics. So I can understand the anger, frustration, irritation and bitterness of Mr Nalin Kohli. I don't mind his harsh words.
When he says that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is a "glorified municipal commissioner", I don't feel sad or offended or even insulted for two reasons. One, he is not insulting the man called Arvind Kejriwal, but the constitutional post of CM, which flows from the will of the people. No matter what he says or what the BJP utters, Arvind is an elected CM, and in the absence of the assembly in session, through him the will of the people is reflected.
So if he is contemptuous of Arvind Kejriwal, he is in fact insulting the sovereign will of the people. And in a democracy, it is the people at large whose will prevails and not that of individuals. Therefore even if he or the BJP hate him personally, they have to show respect to the man to maintain the dignity of the office. Frankly, it does not behove a party which is ruling at the Centre to call the Chief Minister a "glorified municipal commissioner." In their zest to demean him, they demean and belittle themselves.
I have context when I say that the BJP is a bad loser. In 2004, nobody had imagined that the BJP led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani could lose. They thought that India was shining and they would bask in that reflected glory. The election results broke their hearts. For the first two years after the loss, the BJP dreamed that the Manmohan Singh government would collapse and the BJP led by Advani would once again come back to power.
Unfortunately for them, that did not happen. In the 2009 elections, their frustration led them to call Dr Manmohan Singh all kinds of names. He was called "the weakest PM since Independence" despite the economy doing exceedingly well, as a result of which India had then emerged as the second fastest growing economy.
The BJP was not in sync with the people; personalised attacks did not give them any dividend and they lost badly; the Congress gained more than 60 seats.
The party repeated the same mistake again in the 2015 Delhi assembly elections. The BJP's campaign was vitriolic, personalised, abusive and bitter. As a political analyst, I could not believe that this was the party which had won a majority on its own at the Centre, and which had won most comfortably in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir.
Arvind's 'gotra' was targeted. His family was not spared. He was called a "Naxal" by the Prime Minister himself. And with every abuse hurled at us, we in the party used to rejoice. We knew it would help us and boomerang on them as the Indian psyche does not appreciate personalised attacks.
It was a catastrophic result for them. It was a personal blow to Mr. Modi, who had not lost a single election since becoming the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2002. He had walked like a colossus, trampling all opposition. The Delhi elections broke the myth of invincibility named Narendra Modi.
In our party, we had a premonition and had discussed internally that despite such a grand victory and a historic mandate of the people, we would not be allowed to rule peacefully. The BJP and central government did not disappoint us. Every possible obstacle has been created to trip the AAP Government. The LG's office has been blatantly used. An elected CM was not allowed to appoint his own Chief Secretary and other officers.
The Delhi High Court struck down the notification issued by the MHA in 2014. The court told them to respect the mandate of the people; yet the LG came out with a press release stating that the Anti-Corruption Bureau is under his jurisdiction. He has forgotten that the MHA had issued a notification clearly saying that the ACB can't take cognizance of the offence committed by a central government employee. The MHA now tells Arvind that he can't even borrow officials from other states, something that is a routine practice among states and union territories. And Nalin Kohli has the cheek to justify that order.
I was livid and at the same time could not stop laughing when I read Nalin Kohli's statement that the Delhi ACB can't buy surveillance equipment as Delhi is a national capital where all sensitive offices and embassies are located. Believe me, I have never heard a more stupid argument than this. I find it beneath my dignity to even respond to this. Now I am convinced that the BJP government led by Modi is seeking revenge from the people of Delhi for rejecting the BJP and making Arvind the CM. It's a schizophrenic response from a national party. I can't find a rational justification for what the BJP has been doing for the last two months.
It all started when the process of making the ACB stronger began. Is the BJP afraid that if the ACB is allowed to function then some central minister or top party functionary can be in jail soon?
There can be another reason too. AAP won Delhi despite Modi, Amit Shah, various cabinet ministers and MPs with practically no resources. The BJP, Modi and RSS are worried; they feel that if AAP is not restrained in Delhi and if they venture out, then they might weave the same magic across India and that will prove to be a disaster for their ambition to saffronise India. They know in their heart that in 1977 the Janata party with no organisation and resources soundly defeated the once invincible Indira Gandhi.
History was repeated in 1989 when the opposition led by VP Singh vanquished Rajiv Gandhi who had 415 MPs in the Lok Sabha. Even then the Opposition was not in very good health. Why go far? In 2014, Modi won by a huge margin. This was the time when nobody was willing to believe that the BJP will get a majority on its own. Modi is a smart politician and he knows that India is a different kind of democracy and if people believe in someone then they just pour their heart out and give their mandate irrespective of the organisation and resources.
It is then no wonder that the BJP led by Modi, whose spokesperson is Nalin Kohli, wants to kill the phenomenon called AAP and Kejriwal before it becomes a colossus nationally. Thus, the effort to demean us, discredit us. But AAP is on its way to fulfil its promises to the people. The people are with us. Thanks Kohli, for being contemptuous and insulting.
(Ashutosh joined the Aam Aadmi Party in January 2014. The former journalist took on former Union minister Kapil Sibal and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan in the national election from Chandni Chowk in Delhi.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.