As many as 164 candidates, including 18 women, are in the fray for the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi which goes to polls on Sunday. It is expected to be three-cornered fight involving the BJP, AAP and the Congress in all the seats.
The Congress is looking to bounce back after ending up at the third spot in the 2014 elections while the BJP is trying to retain all the seven seats. The AAP is contesting the election on the agenda of full Statehood, hoping to give a tight fight to both the national parties.
Voting will begin at 7 am on May 12 and it is scheduled to go on till 6 pm. A total of 13,819 polling stations will be set up at 2,700 locations in Delhi, with one model polling station in each of the 70 Assembly segments.
As many as 523 polling locations have been identified as critical and 60,000 personnel, including those of the Delhi Police, Home Guards and paramilitary, will be on their toes to ensure that there is no untoward incident.
According to the summary of the electoral roll published on April 23, there are over 1.43 crore voters in Delhi, 78,73,022 male and 64,42,762 female, while 669 belong to the third gender.
While 2,54,723 voters are in the age group of 18 and 19, there are 40,532 electorate with disability who would be provided pick up and drop facility. Nearly 270 FIRs and daily diary (DD) entries were registered against political parties and others here till date for violation of the poll code.
The general election 2019 election witnessed acrimonious exchanges between the AAP and the BJP over allegations of horse-trading, rivals jabbing at one another over alleged discrepancies in affidavits and even a candidate of the ruling party in Delhi breaking down at a Press conference and attack on Delhi Chief Minister and national convener of AAP Arvind Kejriwal.
The campaign which got off to a slow start as alliance talks between the AAP and Congress lingered on till the last days of nomination, gained momentum over the last fortnight with senior leaders drawing huge crowds at mega rallies and road shows in the national Capital.
The campaign reached a crescendo in its last lap with Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a massive rally at the Ramlila Maidan , Congress president Rahul Gandhi addressing two public meetings, while his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra taking out two roadshows in the city.
BJP’s incumbent MP Manoj Tiwari is up against Sheila Dikshit for the Northeast Delhi seat and has already said her entry has made the poll contest “one of the most interesting in the country”. AAP’s Dilip Pandey is also in the fray from the seat.
Other prominent candidates in the race include veteran Congress leader Sheila, Olympian boxer Vijender Singh, who is making his electoral debut from South Delhi, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan from Chandni Chowk, and cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir.
