NEW DELHI: Just over a year before the corporation elections in Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party has won four out of the five seats in byelections. But the party had a setback in Muslim-dominated Chauhan Banger ward in east Delhi which was wrested from it by Congress. BJP drew a blank, losing its stronghold of Shalimar Bagh (North) in the process.
The bypolls for two wards under the north and three under the east corporation were held on Sunday with over 1.2 lakh people exercising their franchise with a voter turnout of 50.8%. The results were declared on Wednesday.
The AAP candidates retained Kalyanpuri and Trilokpuri seats in east Delhi with comfortable margins. The party also won Rohini-C ward where BSP councillor, Jai Bhagwan, switched to AAP and got elected as an MLA in 2020 assembly polls. The AAP candidate in Rohini-C, Ram Chander, managed to defeat his BJP rival, Rakesh, by 2,985 votes as the former councillor was able to claim BSP votes.
Preview to the big fight: AAP sees its vote share go up in four of five wards
The results in Shalimar Bagh (North) and Chauhan Banger were complete reversals in comparison to the 2017 municipal elections. The AAP candidate, Sunita Mishra, won the Shalimar Bagh (North) ward with a lead of 2,705 votes over the BJP candidate, Surbhi Jaju. Traditionally considered to be a safe seat for BJP, with three successive wins, the seat had fallen vacant when BJP councillor Renu Jaju passed away. In the 2017 municipal elections, Jaju had defeated Mishra by 3,367 votes. BJP decided to field her daughter-in-law, Surbhi Jaju, on this seat which is reserved for women but the party failed to repeat its performance. The ward is dominated by Punjabi and Vaishya communities which seem to have opted for AAP in this election with the AAP vote share going up from 31.1% in 2017 to 50.3% now.
In east Delhi, the Chauhan Banger seat, earlier held by AAP, has been won by Congress candidate Chaudhary Zubair Ahmad. Ahmad received over 73.8% of the 21,968 votes cast in the ward while the vote share of AAP dropped by more than 20% when compared to the last elections. BJP received just 105 out of 21,968 valid votes. A Muslim-dominated ward, the Chauhan Banger seat had been won by AAP’s Abdul Rehman by a margin of 2,342 votes over his rival Congress candidate in 2017. The seat fell vacant when Rehman successfully contested the 2020 assembly election and got elected as a member of the legislative assembly.
Dhirender Kumar of AAP won the Kalyanpuri ward by a margin of 7,043 votes while party nominee Vijay Kumar won from Trilokpuri, defeating BJP’s Om Prakash by a margin of 4,986 votes. Both seats were won by AAP in 2017 and the councillors — Kuldeep Kumar and Rohit Kumar, respectively — were later elected as MLAs. While BJP has lost the Trilokpuri ward, its vote share has gone up by 10% in the reserved seat which is dominated by resettlement colonies and JJ clusters with a large chunk of population from the scheduled castes and of Rajasthani and Garhwali origins.
Analysis of the vote percentages across the five wards shows AAP’s vote share has gone up in each of the wards except in Chauhan Banger while in case of Congress, the reverse holds true. BJP, which will be facing anti-incumbency in next year’s municipal elections, has increased its vote share by 10% in two wards — Rohini-C and Trilokpuri.
Besides the three key parties, smaller parties and independents have found it tougher to garner votes. Their share of votes is significantly down with BSP getting only 3,083 votes and all independents getting just 2,017 votes across all five wards. As a result, the overall shares of each of the three major parties have risen, hugely in AAP’s case. Seven-hundredand-seventy-six (0.63%) voters pressed the NOTA button, rejecting all the candidates.
Notwithstanding the small scale of the municipal byelections, the poll pitch was set very high. Politicians described it as a semi-final before the main civic polls. It was the first election after communal riots tore through northeast Delhi early last year. AAP pitched the byelection as a referendum on the performance of BJP in the corporations.
None of the three main political parties spared any effort in preparing for the polls and carrying out campaigning. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal campaigned for his party while BJP fielded some of its senior leaders like Bhupendra Yadav, Delhi unit chief Adesh Gupta and MP Manoj Tiwari. Congress also put its weight behind the party candidates with its senior functionaries undertaking canvassing.
In the Chauhan Banger ward, Congress had fielded its leader and former MLA Mateen Ahmad’s son, Zubair Ahmad. AAP functionary Durgesh Pathak said Ahmad got sympathy votes because his father was losing the election for the past two times and there were some local ward level issues.
BJP Delhi chief Adesh Gupta said the party will introspect on the losses. Congress is likely to contest the 2022 civic polls with renewed vigour, hoping to capitalise on this victory.
(With input from Alok Mishra)