In what is the clearest sign of a complete meltdown for the Congress, its candidates are likely to lose their poll deposits on 63 Delhi assembly seats, according to latest data on the Election Commission website. Three nominees – Devender Yadav in Badli, Abhishek Dutt in Kasturba Nagar and Arvinder Singh Lovely in Gandhi Nagar – among the 66 fielded by the party are possibly on their way to saving their deposits though they are set to lose the polls.

The best performance among candidates fielded by the Rashtriya Janata Dal, which fought in alliance with the Congress, on four seats, is by its nominee in Burari, who has got a little over 1,000 votes or 1.54% of the votes, according to latest data available on the EC website.

Candidates lose their election deposit unless they get at least 1/6th of the total votes polled, or 16.67% of the total votes, in their constituencies. The Congress, as of now, has got just over 4% of the total votes, which is in line with the prediction of many pollsters. Since the restoration of the Delhi assembly, which was dissolved in 1991 when it was turned into a Union Territory, this is the lowest that the party has sunk.

Among the Congress’s other best bets, AK Walia (three times minister in Sheila Dikshit’s cabinet) has polled 3.77% votes in his constituency of Krishna Nagar so fare. Shivani Chopra, daughter of the Congress's Delhi unit Subhash Chopra, has polled 5.42% votes in Kalkaji. Poonam Azad, the wife of Congress's Poorvanchal face and senior leader Kirti Azad, has polled barely 2% of the votes. Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi held a joint rally here. Tarvinder Singh Marwah, three-time MLA and senior Congress leader, has polled 11% votes or slightly under 3,000 votes in Jangpura.

Rahul Gandhi held a rally here. In Dwarka, Adarsh Shastri, who shifted to the Congress from AAP, has polled just over 6% votes. In the reserved constituency of Patel Nagar, former union minister and MP Krishna Tirath has polled under 3% or less than 2,000 votes. A senior minister in three Sheila Dikshit cabinets, Haroon Yusuf has polled around 3,500 or 5.7% votes in his constituency of Ballimaran from where he has won five times.

Alka Lamba, who switched from Congress to AAP and back to Congress, has got 3.45% votes from Chandni Chowk where she won in 2015 on an Aam Aadmi Party ticket.

From the peak of around 50% vote share, which the Congress got in the 2003 assembly elections under Sheila Dikshit, its fall to under 5% has been quite dramatic. For the second time in a row, the Congress appears set to not even open its account. Poll data from 2015 onwards shows that AAP has grown at the expense of the Congress and other smaller parties.

Some observers had suggested, based on the Congress’s surprisingly creditable performance in the municipality elections and its 22% vote share (which was far higher than AAP’s) in the 2019 general elections, that the party was again on the rise. However, various media reports spoke about the dissatisfaction among workers with the no-show of senior Congress leaders during the assembly poll campaigning.

Apart from a handful of rallies in Old Delhi, Jangpura, Sangam Vihar, etc, the Gandhi siblings – Rahul and Priyanka – remained largely absent from the capital. At the same time, home minister Amit Shah himself held around 50 nukkad sabhas and roadshows for the BJP and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal was part of a similar number of public appearances.