New Delhi| Dec, 7: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has started widening its lead in the Delhi civic polls, after early rounds of counting saw a tight contest between the Arvind Kejriwal-led party and the BJP.
Four hours into the counting, at noon, the AAP had won or was leading on 133 of the 250 wards. The BJP, which overtook AAP several times in the see-saw trends early on, was now a winner or ahead in 104 wards. Results were in for 149 seats: AAP 82, BJP 62, Congress 4, and one to an Independent.AAP leaders went into a huddle as the counting threw up a contest much tighter than the AAP sweep predicted by exit polls. Manish Sisodia and Raghav Chadha rushed to Delhi Chief Minister and AAP boss Arvind Kejriwal’s residence. They were joined by Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.The AAP office has kept balloons and celebratory posters ready since the morning. An aggregate of four exit polls had predicted AAP victory in 155 wards; 84 seats for BJP and seven for Congress.Though the BJP has not formed the Delhi state government in the past 24 years, its control over MCD has been strong through Congress and AAP governments. Even when the AAP won a record 67 of 70 seats in the 2015 assembly polls, the BJP, two years later, retained the MCD with 181 of its 272 seats. AAP was second with 48 and Congress third with 30.
The AAP and BJP, both currently controlling parts of Delhi’s administration through state and central governments, are fighting all seats. The Congress is fighting in 247 wards as nominations of three of its candidates were rejected over technicalities.These are the first civic elections after the MCD — divided into three, area-wise, around 10 years ago — was reunified and the wards redrawn. The latest term of the BJP ended early this year. Over 1,300 candidates are in the contest. In the campaign, the BJP went all-out, as it usually does, getting PM Narendra Modi to hand over keys of some slum rehab flats, one of its highlights. It deployed union ministers and chief ministers too. Local leaders were a distant second fiddle.
The AAP prepared since early last year. It kept its pitch directly mounted on the garbage issue: “We’ve improved things under the state, now let us take care of sanitation too.” The slogan “Kejriwal’s government, Kejriwal’s corporator” rivalled the BJP’s similar pitch of “Modi’s double engine” — both building on their top leaders’ faces. The BJP has made promises of housing, and pressed on corruption charges on several AAP ministers. The Congress has also used these to take digs at AAP. But Mr Kejriwal says his “shaandaar” (glorious) work as chief minister won’t be defeated by “bogus charges” and “misuse of central agencies”.The Congress is hoping to get some pockets of influence at least. It’s still rebuilding in Delhi after the death of Sheila Dikshit in 2019. Its focus on macro-politics of ideology — evident in Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ that’s still in central India — means the civic body elections aren’t high on its priority list. Certainly not as high as on the AAP and BJP’s lists.
