New Delhi: Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, contesting from the Patparganj constituency, was leading by a slender margin of 3,006 votes at 3.15 pm, according to the Election Commission website.
According to TV news channel CNN-News18, he has won the seat.
Sisodia’s victory margin in 2015 was 28,791 votes.
The other candidates in the fray from Patparganj were Laxman Rawat from Congress and BJP’s Ravinder Singh Negi.
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Patparganj is a seat in the East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency, which was won by BJP’s Gautam Gambhir in last year’s general election. Gambhir had beat AAP’s Atishi.
The Patparganj Assembly seat has existed since 1993. So far, this seat has seen six elections for the Delhi Assembly.
School education, an AAP showpiece
Over the years, Sisodia has emerged among the closest confidants of AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. While many founder-leaders of the party such as Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan and Kumar Vishwas fell away, Sisodia remained a trusted lieutenant.
Sisodia, a former journalist, entered public life as an anti-corruption crusader before he formally took to electoral politics with the Delhi polls in 2013. That year, he won the Patparganj seat by defeating BJP’s Nakul Bhardwaj by 11,478 votes. After the fall of the AAP-Congress 49-day government in 2014, Sisodia helped organise and prepare the party for the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections.
School education has been among AAP’s key areas of development in their five years in power. And Sisodia was tasked with improving the infrastructure of government-funded schools.
Sisodia is credited for introducing the Happiness and Entrepreneurship curriculum in Delhi schools.
AAP’s manifesto also talks of how the Deshbhakti curriculum will be introduced from the next academic session onward this year.
In the run-up to the Delhi polls, Sisodia had dared the BJP to present its education model, saying 109 primary schools had been shut by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, which is ruled by the BJP.
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