Ahead of the counting of votes for the Delhi assembly polls on Saturday to decide whether the AAP comes to power for a fourth term or the BJP forms a government in the national capital after 27 years, high political drama and posturing added to the suspense as both BJP and the AAP exuded confidence of forming the next government while the latter alleged attempts to poach its nominees. The results will also put a stamp on "Modi guarantees" vs "Kejriwal's guarantees".
Despite most exit polls giving a clear majority to the BJP in the 70-member Assembly, the AAP refused to believe the pollsters as its National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal cited alleged attempts to poach his party's candidates to claim that the bid showed that the BJP was likely to fall short of the majority mark of 36.
The masses will get the answers to questions about who will replace AAP's Chief Minister Atishi and other council of ministers.However, if the BJP wins the polls, it will not only be back to power in Delhi after a long gap of 27 years, but also succeed in breaking the spell of AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal that it has been vying for a decade. The Congress, which ruled Delhi for 15 years in a row till 2013, is striving to stage a comeback after failing to win a single seat in the previous two elections.
According to the Election Commission, the counting process will begin at 8 am with early trends likely to start coming in from initial hours. According to the EC's data, 60.54 per cent votes were polled on Wednesday. Shahdara, Central Delhi, East, South, and Southwest districts will each have one counting station. The North, West, Northeast, and Southeast districts will each have two counting stations, while the New Delhi and Northwest districts will have three counting stations each.
Delhi's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Alice Vaz said a total of 5,000 personnel, including counting supervisors, counting assistants, micro-observers, and supporting staff trained for the process, will be deployed on Saturday for the counting of votes.
In view of the fairness of the counting process, a random selection of five VVPATs (voter verifiable paper audit trails) will be done in each assembly constituency. A three-tier security arrangement, including two companies of paramilitary forces and Delhi Police personnel, has been made for the 19 counting centres, officials said on Friday.
"We have made robust security arrangements (for counting day). Only authorised personnel will be allowed inside the counting centres, where the use of mobile phones will be strictly prohibited," Special Commissioner of Police, Devesh Chandra Srivastva, said while addressing a press conference on securing arrangements for the counting day. Delhi Police has already conducted anti-sabotage checks at all the counting centres and devised a traffic management plan to ensure smooth vehicular movement, he added.
According to police, three-tier security arrangement with 10,000 police personnel, including two paramilitary companies per centre, has been put in place for the 19 counting centres ahead of the Delhi Assembly election results on Saturday.
"We have made robust security arrangements (for counting day). Only authorised personnel will be allowed inside the counting centres, where the use of mobile phones will be strictly prohibited," said Special Commissioner of Police Devesh Chandra Srivastava addressing a press conference on securing arrangements for the counting day. He said that two companies of paramilitary forces would be deployed at each of the counting centre while the Delhi Police personnel will check security outside these centres.
"Two metal frame detectors, hand-held metal detectors and X-ray machines will ensure proper security of the counting centres. Delhi Police has already conducted anti-sabotage checks at all the counting centres," Srivastava said. He also said that an additional DCP will monitor the entire counting centre law and order.
The police teams are already coordinating with the returning officers and political party members to maintain peace during the counting process. PCR Vans will be deployed and the traffic police will ensure smooth vehicular movement, he added.
Several exit polls have given the BJP an edge over the AAP, which has been ruling in Delhi since 2015. To be sure, exit polls are not always accurate and have often got the verdict wrong in earlier elections, especially when diverse populations, castes and communities are at play. These elections are also a litmus test for pollsters and their methodology since a majority of them got the predictions for the Lok Sabha polls as well as a string of assembly polls, including Haryana, wrong. Many pollsters adopted a low-key approach in putting out their data on Wednesday, with some prominent outfits not releasing numbers and a bunch of little-known entities entering the fray.In the 2020 Delhi polls, most exit polls got their predictions wrong. Exit polls had gone wrong in the Lok Sabha elections and, more recently, in the Haryana Assembly polls as well. In the 2020 assembly elections, the AAP won 62 seats and a vote share of 53.5 per cent, the BJP won eight seats and 38.5 per cent votes, and the Congress zero seats and 5per cent of the votes.
Both BJP and AAP have claimed to win nearly 50 seats in the assembly polls. The AAP has rejected the exit poll predictions, asserting it will form the government again with its convener Arvind Kejriwal becoming chief minister for the fourth time. The elections were a referendum for the AAP, which spent the better part of the past five years battling corruption allegations that sent virtually its entire front line leadership behind bars. The AAP sought to train focus on its central welfare plank by offering a bouquet of 16 sops ranging from cash hand-outs to poor women to free treatment for all senior citizens. It sought to blunt anti-incumbency by dropping nearly a third of its incumbent lawmakers and challenging the opponents to come up with an alternative with its main face, Kejriwal.
Its principal challenger, the BJP is hoping to ride on anti-incumbency and middle-class anger to its first victory in the Capital in 27 years.
The party failed to breach double digits in the last two assembly elections but was fancying its chances after stalled work across Delhi and crumbling civic infrastructure triggered palpable anger among ordinary people. It deployed a phalanx of central leaders led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who hammered the AAP on corruption and misgovernance.
The party matched the AAP in welfare outreach and has talked up the tax breaks accorded to the middle-class in the Union Budget to secure its traditional vote bank. It will be hoping for some splintering in the AAP's core base among poorer voters and marginalised castes. The BJP will draw some comfort from the considerable bump in its vote share from 32.19 per cent in 2015 to 38.51 per cent in 2020, even though its seats only rose from three to eight. The AAP's vote share, however, remained stable between 2015 and 2020, going from 54.34 per cent to 53.57 per cent.
