In an election that turned out to be closer than expected, the AAP managed a prestige win; and the BJP did not lose as badly as was predicted. The Congress barely managed to hold on to some relevance.
Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP has won the prestige battle for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), unseating an entrenched BJP. It has won 134 seats, eight above the majority in a House of 250. The BJP, which ran the campaign with PM Narendra Modi’s face, has won 104 — a not so bad performance after 15 years of continuous rule.
The Congress was reduced to nine, which means its base in Delhi continues to erode. In the 2017 MCD polls — when the BJP won 181 of the total 272 wards, while AAP could mange only 48 — the Congress had managed 30 seats.
The AAP office saw massive celebrations with supporters dancing to dhol beats, and kids dressed as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The office had kept balloons and celebratory posters ready since morning. AAP leaders had gone into a huddle as the counting threw up a contest much tighter than the AAP sweep predicted by exit polls.
This AAP win is the first time it has unseated the BJP in any election. Its wins in Delhi have either been against the Congress or a vote of confidence while in power already. In Punjab early this year, it again won against the Congress. Party leader Sanjay Singh pointed to this:, “The BJP would always say AAP has only defeated Congress. Today, Arvind Kejriwal has given them an answer.”
Though the BJP has not formed the Delhi state government in the past 24 years, its control over MCD remained 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.
However, the AAP won the elections and broke that 15 year rule of the BJP on civic body in Delhi.
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