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The induction of Kiran Bedi into the BJP has a skein of political meanings, each of which needs to be disentangled and decoded. Ironically, the most paramount of these meanings is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tacit acceptance of the limits of his popularity. Till now, in all the four state Assembly elections – Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Kashmir – the BJP had refrained from announcing its chief ministerial candidate, or even projecting anyone as the party's face, riding the popularity of Modi to perform astonishingly well in each of them. The BJP's electoral strategy was simple: it sought to pit Modi's persona of Mr Development against the deplorable performance of the chief ministerial candidate of the principal rival parties. Would the voter not prefer Modi over the incumbent chief minister, proven to be inefficient and corrupt? True, Modi won't rule the state directly, but he would, so ran the BJP's pitch, ensure that the development agenda is implemented by whoever the party chooses as Chief Minister, now projected as just a representative of the Prime Minister. The induction of Bedi is a testament that this narrative no longer has a purchase, definitely not in Delhi. She has been more or less anointed as the BJP's face, and though it hasn't been declared explicitly, the statements of both Bedi and other BJP leaders have conveyed to the Delhiites that she is indeed the party's chief ministerial aspirant. So what persuaded Modi and the BJP to reverse their electoral strategy? The most immediate trigger has to be the rally over which Modi presided earlier this month in Delhi – pictures of vacant chairs belied the BJP's boast of gathering a lakh to hear him. Nor was the audience, media reports suggested, overly enthusiastic. It was, in a way, a testament to the limits of Modi's popularity, even its waning. His becoming the party's face for the Delhi state election was fraught with the risk. This was more so because in Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal the BJP had a formidable personality to contend against. He may lack the countrywide following of Modi, but Delhiites, particularly the lower classes, think of Kejriwal as their very own. His 49-day stint as Delhi chief minister had the city's notoriously callous and corrupt police show restraint and a modicum of respect to the underclasses; the menace of bribery was checked to a degree, and the reduction in power and waters bills have had the AAP expand its base, evident from the near four percent increase in the vote-share of the party in the Lok Sabha elections. His profuse apology for quitting the government has also helped repair his image. Count the number of politicians who have sought forgiveness for their mistakes and you'd understand why he has suddenly started appearing as a comeback man. Modi and Kejriwal apart, the BJP had to also countenance the nature of the Delhi electorate. It's more educated, more conscious about the Constitution than most other states. It wouldn't have been easy to convince Delhi that voting the BJP in the name of Modi would mean living under his governance. Aware of the BJP's strategy of turning electoral battles into contests between Modi versus the rest, the AAP had been laboriously pointing to the absence of talent in the BJP's Delhi unit, the inability of anyone in it to match Kejriwal. Through Bedi the BJP is offering an alternative to Kejriwal to Delhi, where the middle class plays a significant role in determining electoral fortunes. Having voted the BJP overwhelmingly in the General Election, the middle class has become a tad wary of the Sangh Parivar and its disruptive politics. This wariness has risen from its ghar wapsi and love jihad programmes and the intemperate remarks of some of the BJP's MPs, as also from Modi's refusal to reprimand them. Was the BJP not voted to usher in development? the middle class asks. The attacks on Christians, and the vandalizing of Churches in the city, also account for the degree of alienation among the middle class with the BJP. In the popular perception the Christians, unlike the Muslims, who are largely seen as fundamentalists or terrorists, hold an array of meanings for the middle class. Christian signifies English education and English schools, which is where the middle class sends its children. Christian suggests to the middle class certain ideas of modernity and westernization. Bedi, in this sense, can help overcome the reservations the middle class has about the BJP. A former police officer, projected for her no-nonsense methods, best typified through that iconic photo of her charging a participant in a Sikh protest march more than two decades ago, she holds out for the BJP the hope of convincing the middle class of restoring order to the city, of checking the high-handed methods of Delhi Police, the criticism of which has undeniably enhanced Kejriwal's popularity. For the BJP, Bedi also symbolises the Punjabi pride, of restoring the clout of the Punjabi community, which has become marginalized over the decades. Delhi was once their city; the Punjabis called the shots in its politics. But the migrants, particularly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, have overwhelmed them. The city was under the rule of Sheila Dikshit for 15 years, a Brahmin from UP. Then again, Kejriwal isn't a Punjabi. Bedi is a Peshawari Hindu, a term used for those Hindus who migrated from Peshawar in Pakistan, and married a Sikh. She is also a native of Punjab. So couldn't this aspect of her identity become a magnet to pull the votes of the Sikh community? Doesn't this neatly dovetail with the much-delayed, though still meagre, compensation money the BJP has promised to the victims of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984? The BJP hopes she will have an appeal for the Sikhs, more so because of the souring of relations between it and the Akali Dal, whose leaders had vigorously campaigned in Delhi in the past. Bedi's persona will also evoke ideas of modernity that sections of the middle class are in thrall to. She will convey to them the images of a working woman, who's independent minded, fluent in speaking English, Hindi and Punjabi, but who's also rooted in tradition, visits temples and gurdwaras, and introduced vipassana in Tihar Jail. One reason why the BJP has been struggling in Delhi is because leaders like Madanlal Khurana, or for that matter, Harsh Vardhan, can't cut across the class-cultural divide of Delhi, whose politics doesn't have caste as its principal driver. The idea of modernity the BJP needs to court because of the conservative agenda its activists have been pursuing. Through such dubious programmes as love jihad, it has sought to circumscribe the free choice of women regarding their bodies and, should we say, hearts. Who they should love, what clothes they should wear, the number of children they should bear – all these undermine the ethos of modernity. Bedi is a counterfoil to the BJP's regressive agenda, a measured assertion of the idea upholding the freedom of women. It is precisely also the reason why Shazia Ilmi has been brought into the BJP. She, too, can be said to represent modernity, a modernity the BJP needs to invoke for claiming that the ghar wapsi programme and love jihad haven't alienated the Muslim community. Ilmi is the BJP's argument to woo not so much Muslims but to dissuade the disenchanted middle class from deserting the party. Yet, ironically, the induction of Bedi (and now of Ilmi) displays the desperation of the BJP to win Delhi. For a cadre-based party to give such prominence to an outsider is, in a sense, unprecedented, entailing as it does the risk of giving a fillip to factional squabbles in the party. It privileges hype over substance, of grabbing headlines to create the feel-good atmosphere before Feb 7, the polling day. But then, it also implies that the BJP will have the unenviable task of defending Bedi's past, an account of which has been provided by Firstpost's Sandipan Sharma. All these disadvantages outweigh the BJP's desire to win Delhi, to ensure that AAP and Kejriwal don't become its rival of the future, and, above all, to keep intact the image of Modi being electorally invincible. Once Modi's image of invincibility is dented, he and the BJP would have lost their most powerful weapon. (Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist from Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, published by HarperCollins, is available in bookstores.) The Complete Link to his article is: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/bjp-inducting-kiran-bedi-shazia-ilmi-shows-modis-waning-influence-in-delhi-2050303.html