The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is on course to retain all the seven seats that it had won in 2014 in Delhi. BJP candidates continued to dominate the trends with five of its candidates taking the lead by the highest margins ever. BJP’s roller coaster victory that remains a mere formality now, saw Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) being relegated to second place on five and two seats respectively.
The AAP’s rout in Delhi was complete with its treasurer Pankaj Gupta from Chandni Chowk, Dileep Pandey from North east and Brijesh Goyal from New Delhi seat forfeited their deposits.
The poor performance of AAP in Delhi was complete after it failed in security lead in the 67 Assembly seats that it had won in 2015 Delhi Assembly elections.
Its candidates were placed third in vote share in 48 Assembly constituencies. Even Gole Market and Patparganj seats held by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia voted poorly in favour of AAP candidates.
The BJP already went into celebratory mode with jubilant supporters of the saffron party starting to burst crackers and shouting slogans at various counting centres. Singer-turned-politician Hans Raj Hans was leading in the Northwest Delhi constituency with a whopping margin of 5.04 lakh votes. He is pitted against AAP’s Gugan Singh, who is on the second position and Congress’ Rajesh Lilothia at the third spot.BJP’s incumbent MP from West Delhi Parvesh Verma got over 8,48,555 votes against his nearest rival Mahabal Mishra of Congress. Verma had won this seat with margin of 2.68 lakh votes in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Confident of retaining the seat, Verma has maintained an unassailable lead.
Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, who contested from the Northeast Delhi constituency against Congress veteran and former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and AAP’s Dilip Pandey, was also leading with securing 7,85262 votes.
Tiwari said they (BJP) were sure of victory but did not expect such a “huge” margin. “We were confident of the victory but were not expecting this kind of huge margin. I am indebted to the voters for imposing their faith in us.
“The kind of treatment that AAP has meted out to me always, the public has always observed it and voted accordingly. We have crossed the first hurdle in Delhi and will now gear up for the second one in February (Assembly elections).”
Cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir, who is making his electoral debut from East Delhi constituency, was also leading. He got over 6,95,109 votes. Gambhir is locked in a contest with Congress’ Arvinder Singh Lovely and AAP’s Atishi.
Incumbent MP from New Delhi Meenakshi Lekhi was also ahead of Congress’ Ajay Maken. South Delhi’s incumbent MP Ramesh Bidhuri was leading with a margin of over 3.31 lakh votes on the seat with AAP’s Raghav Chadha on the second spot.
Chandni Chowk was the only seat where the BJP candidate’s margin was the lowest at 1.49 lakh votes. Union Minister Harsh Vardhan is locked in a close fight with Congress veteran Jai Prakash Agarwal from the constituency.
Counting is underway for seven Lok Sabha seats in the national Capital. “The counting is going on smoothly in all the seven counting centres. Till now we have not received any complaints or any information of disturbance at the counting centres. Also the law and order situation is normal in the city,” Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ranbir Singh said.
The elections for the seven parliamentary seats were seen largely a triangular contest among the incumbent BJP, a spirited Congress and the AAP - the ruling party in Delhi but the results is different as the BJP seemed to have a clear edge from the beginning of counting. While the BJP, which had won all seven seats in the 2014 polls, is keen to regain the turf, the Congress that ended up at the third spot in the last Lok Sabha elections, is looking to bounce back.
Results of all the seven seats are delayed since the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) will be taken up later the in night by the respective returning officers. As per the established norms, VVPAT slips from five booths from each Assembly segment. There are 70 Assembly seats in Delhi and that will take some time, final results are likely to be declared on Friday, poll officials said.
