NEWS
ANALYSIS
SPECIALS
INTERVIEW
CAMPAIGN TRAIL
CONSTITUENCY
ISSUES
GALLERY
MANIFESTOS
INDIA SPEAKS!
COUNTDOWN
CHAT
PREVIOUS RESULTS
SCHEDULE
DISCUSSION GROUP

Sensing victory, BJP nominees jockey for a cabinet berth

With exit polls having predicted that the Bharatiya Janata Party will return to power, party nominees in the capital have began openly jockeying for cabinet berths.

With several heavy weight leaders in the fray in Delhi's seven Lok Sabha seats, the party is witnessing an open and aggressive campaign being launched by almost every party candidate for a berth in the possible government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee. Madan Lal Khurana, former Union minister who is fighting elections from Delhi Sadar, claims that since he was a member in the last cabinet till he resigned, he is an automatic choice for the next cabinet.

Outer Delhi candidate Sahib Singh Verma is pinning his hopes on the fact that Vajpayee had given him a written assurance in this regard when he was removed from the post of Delhi chief minister. But even with an assurance of a cabinet berth in his pocket, Verma had to roam all of Delhi, calling on every BJP leader he knew. To no avail.

He sulked awhile then began actively campaigning for the party in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Now Verma, who is expected to sweep the Outer Delhi elections, is so confident that he has even been telling friends of his choice of portfolio -- urban affairs.

"I will be able to do a lot of things for developing the National Capital Territory Region. And I know urban affairs quite well," he told a friend.

Vijay Kumar Malhotra, the South Delhi candidate who is taking on Manmohan Singh of the Congress, hopes for a big win and a subsequent reward. As confident isn Anita Arya, the Delhi mayor who is taking on CWC member Meira Kumar, in Karol Bagh.

Chandni Chowk candidate Vijay Goel, who is known to be close to Vajpayee, is sure he will become a minister, since he represents the youth wing of the BJP.

Even the low-profile Lal Behari Tiwari, who is fighting the East Delhi constituency for the third time, has been telling his friends that he will find a berth in the cabinet this time.

Jagmohan, who was in the last cabinet, is the only one who isn't queuing up for a ministerial berth. But that others are not sparing him, saying he was the one who kicked up the telecom scam that is embarrassing Vajpayee now.

"He could have avoided that," said one cabinet hopeful, while asserting that this time Jagmohan would not get a ministry.

Verma was replaced as the Delhi chief minister by Sushma Swaraj. The latter is also waxing confident that her bad times are over and that she will be rewarded with an "important post" in the cabinet for taking on Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Bellary.

Realizing the importance of Sushma Swaraj in the post-Bellary scenario, people like Verma and Goel have been admitting in private their fear that she will "any way be made a cabinet member".

Verma and Goel have been thus gunning for Mr Madan Lal Khurana, saying he has "humiliated the BJP by resigning from the cabinet after making sweeping allegations against the RSS". They perhaps hope if Khurana is pushed out of the race, their chances will brighten.

Goel has backing from people like Pramod Mahajan.

V K Malhotra, BJP's South Delhi candidate, is also in the race for a ministership. He believes that if he can beat Dr Manmohan Singh, then "nothing can stop" him from entering the cabinet. He is the chief whip of the BJP in Rajya Sabha at present, and is among the "seniormost leaders of the party," his supporters say.

Tell us what you think of this report