After the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) defeat in the Delhi Assembly Election with just getting eight seats in the 70 member assembly, former BJP leader and finance minister Yashwant Sinha took a jibe at his old party with a congratulatory message saying BJP “more than doubled their tally in Delhi state assembly elections” and called it “sterling performance.”

Sinha took to Twitter and said sarcastically, “Congratulations to my old party. They have more than doubled their tally in Delhi state assembly elections. Sterling performance.”

Congratulations to my old party. They have more than doubled their tally in Delhi state assembly elections. Sterling performance.

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— Yashwant Sinha (@YashwantSinha) February 11, 2020

AAP bagged 62 of the total 70 seats, restricting the principal challenger BJP again to a single-digit figure of mere 8 seats in a bitterly-fought, fiercely-contested electoral battle that took place in the national capital in the midst of continuing protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The Delhi results seemed to have dealt a stunning blow to the BJP which sought to turn this Assembly election as virtually a “referendum” on the CAA.
Spearheaded by Union home minister Amit Shah, the BJP had made its fierce opposition to the anti-CAA-NRC Shaheen Bagh protests its main plank for the Delhi Assembly election, consistently alleging and insinuating that this site has become a “den” of “separatists” and “anti-national” elements.

At his election rallies, Shah repeatedly called upon people of Delhi that they should express their “anger” against the Shaheen Bagh protests by “pressing” the buttons on EVM machines in favour of the BJP candidates so firmly that “the Shaheen Bagh protesters could feel its current”.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president J P Nadda addressed several rallies as part of the BJP’s high-voltage, aggressive electioneering during which the saffron party virtually sought to make it a Shah versus Kejriwal contest.

The opponents of the BJP accused the saffron party of undertaking a divisive, vitriolic campaign to polarise the voters by consistently highlighting the over 50-day sit-in protest by a group of women at Shaheen Bagh in Southeast Delhi.

The saving grace in BJP’s defeat is the vote percentage increase from 32 per cent in 2015 to 38 per cent in this assembly election.

Earlier, a senior leader of the BJP, Sinha served as the Finance Minister and External Affairs Minister from 1998 to 2004 in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee led BJP government. He quit the party on April 21, 2018 and is now a vocal critic of the Modi government on various issues, be it CAA, NRC, abrogation of Article 370 or slumping Indian Economy.