However, Gupta claimed that the AAP MLAs and councillors are unhappy with their party leadership for adopting “anti-people” policies while being in power.
“The political base of AAP has shifted in Delhi and people have lost faith in the party. It’s good that they have realised that the situation has changed in Delhi,” Gupta told reporters.
The BJP has declared its senior councillors Raja Iqbal Singh and Jai Bhagwan Yadav as candidates for the posts of mayor and deputy mayor, respectively, and is poised to win the elections.
In the 2022 MCD polls, the AAP bagged 134 of the 250 wards, while the BJP won 104. Later, however, several AAP councillors defected to the BJP.
A senior BJP leader said that at present, the party has a strength of 117 councillors. Further, 11 nominated MLAs and 7 Lok Sabha MPs of the party are also eligible to vote in the mayoral polls, he said.
“The AAP leaders know that many other party councillors, unhappy with their leadership, are waiting to quit the party and join the BJP. The decision to abstain from the election is a strategy of the AAP to check a mass exodus of its councillors,” he claimed.
The equation is “perfectly in favour of the BJP. It is going to win the polls to power Delhi’s development with triple engine governance”, he said.
Addressing a press conference earlier in the day, senior AAP leader Atishi charged, “BJP did a lot of rigging during the MCD elections but still it lost badly. Even after this, it did not stop and all the councillors were poached.” PTI VIT RT
