New Delhi, Feb 7 Once the results of the Delhi Assembly elections are out on February 11, the focus will shift in the coming weeks and months to Bihar where Assembly elections are slated to be held later this year.
The Delhi elections are expected to throw up a new BJP leadership in Bihar, where Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi is at present the undisputed party leader.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who has spearheaded the BJP campaign in the Delhi Assembly elections along with party leader Bhupendra Yadav, has projected Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai as the face of the Bihar unit of the BJP.
Bihar BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal and Union Minister Giriraj Singh have also emerged as front runners in the party's Delhi poll campaign.
As an office-bearer of the BJP Delhi unit, Rai is learning the ropes of election management. He has been putting into effect the poll plan chalked out by Shah. Though he addressed only nine public meetings in Delhi, Rai represented Shah in many meetings of party leaders.
Jaiswal, on the other hand, had taken over the responsibility for the Sangam Vihar seat. Jaiswal not only addressed five public meetings of the BJP in Delhi, apart from the ones in Sangam Vihar, he also helped organise three rallies of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to woo Purvanchalis. Sources said that Jaiswal was supervising the deployment of party leaders trooping in from Bihar for the Delhi elections.
Giriraj Singh was given the charge of Rithala seat, where he undertook a door-to-door campaign for 10 consecutive days.
BJP MLA from Bihar, Nitin Navin, however, pointed out that Rai, Jaiswal and Giriraj were senior party leaders deployed for poll duty by the party leadership. He said it would not be proper to draw any conclusions from the arrangement.
Since Purvanchali voters will influence the results in many Delhi constituencies, the outcome will decide the political future of these three leaders.
Bihar politics in the past 30 years has revolved around political leaders associated with the Jaiprakash Narayan movement. While the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad has already handed over the leadership to his son Tejashwi Yadav, it is now the turn of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
( With inputs from IANS )