NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Tuesday sounded the poll bugle for a thrilling three-way contest in Delhi with a determined BJP going all out to prevent the ruling AAP from another sweeping victory. The Congress, which is the third pole of this triangular contest, is confident of making its presence felt.
Polling for all 70 assembly seats in Delhi will be held on February 5 and the votes will be counted on February 8, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced on Tuesday.
Arvind Kejriwal‘s AAP, which won overwhelming mandate in the last two assembly elections, is going all out for a hat-trick. The AAP supremo earlier in the day launched the party’s poll campaign song “Phir layenge Kejriwal…”. Kejriwal asserted that the people of Delhi will express their faith in the politics of work pursued by his party instead of the “abusive politics” of the BJP. AAP has already announced all its candidates, with party convener Kejriwal contesting from the New Delhi seat, which he has held since 2013, and Chief Minister Atishi seeking re-election from the Kalkaji seat.
Kejriwal claimed that the Delhi polls would be a contest between the “politics of work and politics of abuse” and asserted that his party would form the government in the national capital. “This election will be between the politics of work and the politics of abuse. The people of Delhi will have faith in our politics of work. We will definitely win,” Kejriwal said in a post on X.
The BJP, on the other hand, fancies its chances this time banking on anti-incumbency against Kejriwal and the corruption allegations against his government. The party has been relentless in its attacks against Kejriwal. The BJP was in power in Delhi the last time between December 2, 1993 and December 3, 1998, a period during which the national capital saw three chief ministers — Madan Lal Khurana, Sahib Singh Verma and Sushma Swaraj.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already launched the party’s campaign with a vicious attack on AAP government.
He called the AAP government a “disaster” that had struck Delhi, and said any more responsibility given to the “AAP-da” means punishment for the people of Delhi. “The “AAP-da” government does not have any vision to develop the national capital, and that is what lotus (the BJP’s poll symbol) is going to bloom in the city and the BJP would usher in change,” the Prime Minister said at a rally last week.
Meanwhile, the Congress is gearing up to reclaim its lost political space in Delhi. The grand-old-party, which ruled Delhi from 1998 to 2013, has been in political wilderness for over a decade. The Congress, which had tied up with the AAP for Lok Sabha elections, is contesting alone after Kejriwal said no to alliance. The party has so far announced 48 candidates and its leaders have been vocal in attacking Kejriwal, who remains a party ally at the national level under the INDIA bloc banner.
AAP’s spectacular political journey in Delhi
The AAP, which was formed in 2012, emerged on the political map of Delhi with an impressive electoral performance in the 2013 assembly polls winning 28 seats of the total 70 and a vote share of 29.5 per cent. The BJP won 32 seats and Congress 8 seats, with vote percentage of 32.3 and 24.6 respectively.
However, from there on there was no looking back for AAP in the assembly elections. It won a massive mandate with a whopping 54.3 per cent vote share and 67 seats in the 70-member assembly in 2015. The BJP scraped through 3 seats while the Congress drew a blank, having a vote percentage of 32.2 and 9.7, respectively.
A more or less similar performance was repeated in the 2020 polls with the AAP winning 62 seats with 53.6 per cent vote share. The BJP managed to improve its seat tally to 8 with a vote share of 39 per cent, while the Congress again failed to win any seat and its vote percentage halved to 4.3 per cent.
(With inputs from agencies)
