Home Minister Amit Shah, speaking today on day two of the Times Now Summit 2020 in New Delhi, said that he humbly accepts the Delhi election results in which his Bharatiya Janata Party suffered a drubbing, winning just eight of the total 70 Assembly seats.
Speaking about his role in the recently concluded Delhi Assembly Election in which BJP emerged as runners up, Shah said: “I have worked tirelessly for every election, not just for Delhi elections”.
Shah said the BJP doesn’t fight elections just for victory. “We have put our heart and soul into every election, not just in Delhi. It’s not for the first time that we have lost an election. We had lost in Bihar as well as other states. We don’t fight elections only for the results. Our objective is to spread our party’s agenda to maximum people”, Shah told the audience during a fireside chat at the summit.
He stated that BJP campaigns to spread ideology, not just to win. “For many parties, elections are about forming a government or toppling a government. BJP is an ideology based party, for us elections are also elections to enhance our ideology. We don’t fight elections only for victory.”
चुनाव बहुत सारे दलों के लिए, सरकार बनाने और सरकार गिराने के लिए होते हैं।
भाजपा एक विचारधारा पर आधारित पार्टी है, हमारे लिए चुनाव हमारी विचारधारा को बढ़ाने का भी चुनाव होता है।
सिर्फ जय पराजय के लिए हम चुनाव नहीं लड़ते: श्री @AmitShah #TimesNowSummit
— BJP (@BJP4India) February 13, 2020
We humbly accept that we have lost in Delhi. We will now worry about, sitting in Delhi, that this government (AAP government) functions properly,” Amit Shah said.
Read- Home Minister Amit Shah says ready to meet Shaheen Bagh ‘protestors’ to talk on CAA and NRC
Shah denied that the people of Delhi had rejected the BJP. “It’s not like the people rejected us. Kejriwal was third in the Lok Sabha elections. That doesn’t mean that he was rejected by the people of Delhi. Elections are the result of a combination of several factors. Ideology is independent of election results. We did not leave ideology even after sitting in Opposition for decades. We had opposed Article 370 then, we’ve abrogated it now,” he said in response to a question.
Elections are the result of a combination of several factors. Ideology is independent of election results.
We did not leave after ideology even after sitting in Opposition for decades. We had opposed Article 370 then, we’ve abrogated it now: Shri @AmitShah #TimesNowSummit pic.twitter.com/nFvnwpN9dq
— BJP (@BJP4India) February 13, 2020
“My tweet about winning 45 seats in Delhi had nothing to do with election results, that was my assessment. It happens that assessments go wrong,” he said, clarifying about his tweet a day before the counting of votes in Delhi expressing confidence about forming a BJP government in the capital.
On Shaheen Bagh, Amit Shah said elections are not fought on a single issue. “We made Shaheen Bagh a poll issue and that is still an issue,” he said.
Further speaking on his remark that people should press the button on EVM so hard that current should be felt in Shaheen Bagh, Shah said it’s a certificate from the Opposition that from the entire campaign, they picked up this issue. “I didn’t mean individuals should get current, it is a way to make people understand the issue.”
He accepted that hate remarks like given by West Delhi MP Parvesh Varma on Shaheen Bagh could have hurt the party in Delhi. “We had distanced ourselves from those comments. It is possible that we might have suffered partially because of those comments,” the Home Minister said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party had managed to win 8 seats of the 70 Delhi assembly seats in the recently concluded elections with Delhi’s mandate going in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party which came back to power in the capital by winning 62 out of the 70 seats.
