Congress is yet to open its account in the 2020 Delhi elections. According to Election Commission trends, the party is leading in exactly zero seats and its vote share at present is 4.25%. The trends are in consonance with exit poll results where most pollsters had predicted 0-1 seats for the Grand Old Party.
The Election Commission trends show that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is leading in 58 seats and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on 12 seats as of 1.10 pm.
In the 2015 assembly elections in Delhi also Congress had not managed to win any seats and its vote share was 9.65%.
Prominent Congress candidates — Alka Lamba and Arvinder Singh Lovely — are also trailing in their respective constituencies. Lamba, who is contesting from Chandni Chowk, has only gotten 1,234 votes as compared to AAP’s Parlad Singh Sawhney who has over 23,000 votes. In Gandhi Nagar, BJP’s Anil Kumar Bajpai is leading while Lovely is likely to finish third.
Congress leaders have accepted defeat with Delhi party chief Subhash Chopra saying that he takes responsibility for the party’s performance. Talking to ANI, he said that the drop in the party’s vote percentage “is the politics of polarisation of both the BJP and AAP”.
Congress leader Sharmistha Mukherjee conceded that the party has been decimated in Delhi. “Inordinate delay in decision making at the top, lack of strategy and unity at state level, demotivated workers, no grassroots connect, all are factors,” she tweeted.
Meanwhile, some other Congress leaders are more concerned about BJP’s performance.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, while talking about the Congress’s performance in Delhi, said, “We were already aware of it. The question is, what happened to BJP which was making big claims?”
Abhishek Manu Singhvi also told NDTV, “I am happy to the extent that BJP is not winning it. AAP’s victory is less disappointing to me. AAP has done some good work in education.”
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said the Delhi Assembly election was a fight between “a giant and a pygmy” and AAP is winning it despite the NDA government using all its might to wrest power in the national capital.
“The common people have decided they will choose either BJP or AAP. It’s a vote for the development agenda. The entire government, along with all its entire machinery, had been deployed in Delhi to win this election. From the Prime Minister to grassroots workers, it’s been a fight between a giant and a pygmy and the pygmy has won,” he was quoted as saying by PTI. He made no mention of his own party’s performance.
Senior leader P Chidambaram tweeted that the people of Delhi “have defeated the polarising, divisive and dangerous agenda of the BJP”.
The memes on Congress’s performance in Delhi were not far behind.