Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, on Thursday said in an article posted on the BJP website that the lesson for parties in 2014 is that the bar of expectation has been raised higher by the people and they are judging "harshly" both persons in public life and the quality of governance.
Though Jaitley attacked Congress, saying Delhi elections proved the government here had lost credibility and hence fared badly, he said BJP also needs to introspect.
He reasoned that since Delhi was the "epicenter of the anti-corruption movement" in the past three years and Congress failed miserably on this count, it ended up being a clear loser. He conceded BJP could not sweep the polls as a section of the electorate was impressed with the idea of experimenting a new alternative.
"It was a silent protest against the quality of conventional politics that gave a significant number of votes to the Aam Aadmi Party," Jaitley said.
"Even though BJP emerged as the largest party in terms of votes and seats, the election results of Delhi are a cause of introspection for the BJP. It's state leaders, as also individual candidates, will have to measure up to popular expectations," he added.
Among the corrective steps BJP is taking is to nationally approach ten crore households for collecting small donations for the party's election expenses. This idea appears to have been borrowed from AAP which had collected small sums as donations during the Delhi elections.