Former minister in the Arvind Kejriwal government, Kapil Mishra joined the BJP on Saturday. He was welcomed by BJP national vice president Shyam Jaju and Delhi unit president Manoj Tiwari at the party’s office at Pant Marg.
“I welcome Kapil Mishra and Richa Pandey into BJP and hope they will serve Delhi by following the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and philosophy of Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Syama Prasad Mookerjee”, Tiwari said.
While speculations over Mishra joining the BJP were ripe since he started criticising the AAP supremo since 2017, this decision comes finally as pleasant news. The move is not only beneficial for Kapil Mishra, being a part of the current government, but is beneficial for BJP as well. Mishra is exactly the kind of guy that BJP in Delhi requires, especially ahead of the crucial assembly elections.
Kapil Mishra rose to prominence in the Aam Aadmi Party after beating his opponent with a huge margin of 44431 votes from the Karawal Nagar constituency in the Delhi Assembly Elections 2015. Kapil Mishra was appointed minister for law, tourism, water, art and culture and Gurdwara Elections in June this year, after Jitender Singh Tomar resigned following his arrest on charges of faking educational certificates. And barely two months after he was appointed the Delhi Law Minister, Kapil Mishra was relieved of the portfolio by CM Kejriwal.
In the 2015 assembly elections, the AAP had emerged victorious in 67 seats out of a total of 70 seats. However, over the years the party’s support base deteriorated and the voters were largely dissatisfied with the kind of governance AAP was offering. Thus, these Lok Sabha elections saw a major failure of the party, with them losing on all 7 seats of Delhi and winning just 1 out of the total 543 parliamentary constituencies.
BJP thus has very positive chances of winning the elections, but for this, they need an insider, who knows all the issues to the core and can help BJP build an election campaign around it. Kapil Mishra is exactly that guy. As a former minister in Kejriwal’s cabinet, he knows all the dirty secrets waiting to be unfolded. Mishra has the potential to uncover the anti-corruption mask of the Arvind Kejriwal government. The primary of these is the Delhi Jal Board tanker scam at the behest of the Kejriwal government.
Immediately before the cabinet reshuffle and removal of Kapil Mishra, he had written a letter to Kejriwal, along with sending a report by ‘The fact-finding committee on Water Tanker Distribution management system’ which stated that the then DJB chairman and Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and other board members had caused a loss of almost 400 crores to Delhi Jal Board. He had written in the letter, “I am afraid that immediately after this expose, there will be attempts to destabilize our govt in Delhi and also to remove me from this chair.”
Immediately after this, Kapil Mishra was removed from his post which only smells fishy. A couple of years ago, Kapil Mishra had claimed that he witnessed illegal cash changing hands. He alleged that Delhi Health Minister paid an amount of Rs. 2 Crore to Delhi Chief and AAP National Convener Arvind Kejriwal.
Not only is Mishra aware of all the corruption scandals and illegal involvements of the anti-corruption party, but, is not afraid to expose them. Ever since he was ousted from the government, he has been motivated and spirited to go against AAP, with no holds barred. Since then, he has held several press conferences and alleged money laundering against Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party. He has shown several undated cheques with large amounts made out to AAP. The amounts range from a few lakhs to two cheques of 35,00,00,000 each. That’s right, it’s a scam upwards of seventy crores.
He hasn’t even spared Delhi’s Finance Minister regarding a slew of projects. On the day of Delhi’s 2018-19 budget, he stated that despite AAP’s tall promises, the Actual Expenditure on Education and Health is not even 10% of overall Budget. He outlined that AAP failed to spend even one-fourth of the budget allotted for education and health.
He even filed a petition against Kejriwal over poor attendance in Assembly as he had less than 10% attendance in the assembly. Thus, he definitely has an axe to grind with Kejriwal, and will be motivated and spirited in whatever capacity BJP puts him in the Delhi campaign.
Apart from the vendetta against AAP, Mishra has a huge base on social media and will be an asset as far as BJP’s outreach towards Delhi electorate is concerned. Also, seeing as though Mishra as an individual is quite straight forward, honest and full of integrity, his statements do have a certain believable quality, enough to draw the attention of the people of Delhi.
More so than that, Mishra is funny and witty in his interaction, making people instantaneously like him. He is best suited for the kind of voice the urban audiences require from the leaders. As an extremely popular leader, Mishra is going to be vital for the saffron party in their fight against AAP, in the election to come.