Eyebrows were raised within the BJP camp on Monday after the party inducted former UPA Minister and a lightweight, Krishna Tirath, into the party. Her joining BJP comes amidst the party’s efforts to woo Dalit voters of the capital to boost its prospects in the February 7 polls. Delhi has 12 reserved seats of which a majority was won by the AAP in the last assembly polls in 2013. BJP won only two while Congress got one. Some felt that induction of Tirath could send in a “wrong signal” and it might seem that the party was getting somewhat “desperate.”
Fifty-nine year old Dalit leader, Tirath was welcomed in the BJP by party president Amit Shah with a bouquet of flowers. The former women and child development minister in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA Government was accompanied by BJP’s in-charge of Delhi affairs Prabhat Jha and party’s state unit chief Satish Upadhyay. Strangely, senior Congress leaders were not aware about Tirath’s plan to resign from the party.