Amit Shah on Thursday acknowledged that explosive slogans like “goli maaro” should not have been raised in the Delhi Assembly elections and that such exhortations “may have cost the party”.

But the Union home minister and the BJP’s campaign spearhead chose to publicly address such provocation only after the polls while allowing the situation to fester during the vitriolic campaign.

At a question-and-answer session at the Times Now Summit 2020, Shah conceded that his assessment that the BJP would surely win 45 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly was wrong.

Other than the rare admission, Shah more or less stuck to his known stated position on most issues, including the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens.

Although Shah said his election arithmetic was proved wrong, he added that it didn’t mean the “ideology” he had propagated during the campaign had been rejected by the people.

At the session, interviewer Navika Kumar had asked Shah about incendiary comments of party leaders such as “desh ke gaddaro ko, goli maaro salon ko” and a description of the Delhi election as an “India-Pakistan match”.

Shah replied: “Aise bayan nahi deni chahiye (Such statements shouldn’t have been made).”

Asked if the BJP had paid the price for such comments, the leader replied: “The BJP may have paid the price, it is possible.”