New Delhi: It has been a very bitterly contested election for the 70-member Delhi Assembly with charges, counter changes, accusations and name calling. All the three major parties - Bharatiya Janata Party, Aam Aadmi Party and Congress - have gone all out to woo the 1,30,85,251 voters of Delhi in their bid to form the next government. In a no-holds-barred campaign the entire BJP leadership including Prime Minister Narendra Modi plunged headlong into the battle to take on the AAP, which has risen like the proverbial phoenix in the last couple of months, even as Congress is now just a bystander in its former bastion.
Delhi's lanes, posh colonies, slums, JJ clusters, resettlement colonies, middle class neighbourhoods and rural belts witnessed a high-decibel campaign by the political parties and candidates for the February 7 elections. In the last few weeks, the two principal rivals - BJP and AAP - were involved in a full blown war to win Delhi.
With the dust settling down and campaign coming to an end, the candidates will first wait with bated breath for February 7 when Delhi's voters will march to the polling booth to exercise their franchise and then for February 10 when winners and losers will be declared.
In a marked departure from its tried and tested strategy of fighting even state elections on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's name, the BJP projected a chief ministerial candidate in Delhi to counter Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP, which has been giving former a run for its money in the national capital.
After 49 days of dharnas, agitations, protests and controversies Kejriwal had quit as Delhi CM on February 14, 2014. Kejriwal's relationship with Delhi ended on Valentine's Day and after his party's rout and his own massive loss in Varanasi against Modi in Lok Sabha elections, it seemed that AAP had been delivered the knockout punch.
But slowly and surely, AAP and its band of never-say-die volunteers managed to recover their chutzpah. When 2015 dawned, it became clear that Delhi's battle would be between AAP and BJP although the latter had the momentum after winning the Lok Sabha elections followed by victories in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and a very impressive show in Jammu and Kashmir.
In just a few months, AAP had been able to not only regain the lost ground but was slowly marching ahead of the BJP, which had lacked a big name in Delhi after Chandni Chowk MP Harsh Vardhan moved to the Centre. With hardly any leader in its Delhi unit who could take on Kejriwal, BJP President Amit Shah surprised everyone by bringing former IPS officer Kiran Bedi into the party and then projected her as the chief ministerial candidate.
Yet Bedi's entry along with a few others from other parties was not without controversy as several BJP leaders were sidelined and denied ticket. There were protests by many leaders and their supporters with even a member of Bedi's campaign committee, Narendra Tandon, quitting the party after accusing her of behaving like a dictator only to take back his resignation after a few hours. In some of the seats, former BJP leaders are contesting as Independents after they were denied tickets.
But with a strong cadre network and support of its affiliate outfits, the well-oiled BJP election machinery started to move on as Modi, 120 party MPs, several union ministers including Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Uma Bharti along with many state leaders and chief ministers also joined the campaign after it became clear that AAP was moving ahead.
Coupled with Modi's high popularity rating and some chinks in AAP's armour, the battle soon turned into a deadly slugfest with BJP leaders throwing a punch which was promptly replied by the Kejriwal camp. Banking on Bedi, a former colleague of Kejriwal during the anti-corruption movement of Anna Hazare, the BJP is hopeful of capturing power in Delhi after more than 16 years.
While Modi appealed to Delhiites to vote for the BJP to ensure better synergy with the Centre, his party also projected Bedi as a clean and incorruptible leader to counter Kejriwal. Bedi has also been given the BJP safe seat of Krishna Nagar which Harsh Vardhan had represented from 1993 to 2013. But not all BJP leaders believe the party's plan has worked.
A BJP leader on the condition of anonymity said, "The way the BJP campaigned, it will actually benefit the AAP and Kejriwal will win the poll." Even several voters believe that BJP pushing its entire top brass to counter AAP may backfire.
Delhi's class divide also came to the fore as electioneering progressed. While the poor, daily wage labourers, lower middle class, auto drivers and rickshaw pullers were seen backing AAP, the middle class and the well-to-do sections are with the BJP as they see a maverick, inexperienced and immature leader in Kejriwal, who is once again contesting from New Delhi where he had trounced three-time Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit by a massive margin in 2013.
AAP countered BJP by undertaking small corner meetings, door-to-door campaign and direct interaction with voters even as it faced charges of taking Rs 2 core as funds from fake companies. This led to another round of bitter exchanges with BJP charging AAP of using black money and being involved in hawala transactions. But once again Kejriwal played the victim and dared the Centre to arrest him.
While his rivals taunted and targeted him as a 'bhagoda' (runaway) leader, Kejriwal did what very few Indian politicians have done. He went on to apologise for resigning as Delhi CM promising to not commit such a mistake in future. The poor of Delhi feel that Kejriwal was forced to quit by the BJP and Congress as these two parties are not in favour of ending corruption.
The Congress which ruled Delhi for 15 years from 1998 to 2013 is in the race in just a handful of seats, its leaders claim the people of Delhi are regretting their decision in 2013 of voting out the party. They say the Congress will bounce back with vengeance in this election even though ground reports suggest it is headed for another massive rout.
BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the 2013 election with 31 seats while its ally Shiromani Akali Dal had won one, AAP 28, Congress 8, Janata Dal United and Independent one each.
While election campaign came to an end at 6 pm on Thursday with roadshows by candidates in their constituencies, parties and their supporters will now undertake door-to-door canvassing in Delhi.
Out of the 70 constituencies, 12 are reserved for Scheduled Castes but there is no seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. The fate of 673 candidates will be decided on February 7 but they will know their fate only after three days.
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