Delhi MCD elections judgment day: 15 years of incumbency vs change

NEW DELHI: The outcome of the battle for the reunified municipal corporation will be decided by Wednesday afternoon. Counting of votes for the 250 wards will begin at 8am and all the results are likely to be declared by 2-3pm.
Delhi MCD election results 2022 live updates
The results will have a far-reaching impact on the political fortunes of the three major contenders: BJP, AAP and Congress. While exit polls have given AAP a huge mandate and predicted the worst-ever result for Congress, BJP believes it cannot yet be discounted and it could end up with more seats than given by the exit surveys.
The high-stakes municipal elections saw intensive campaigning by AAP and BJP, but a poor voter turnout. Just half of 1.45 crore eligible electorate voted on Sunday and the 50.5% turnout was the lowest in the last three municipal polls in the capital.
BJP had recorded its best victory in the 2017 civic elections for the trifurcated body winning a cumulative 181 seats with a vote share of 36.8%. AAP was a distant second with 48 seats and 26.2% of the votes, while Congress barely managed to capture 30 seats and 21.1% of the ballots.
The table may turn this time as the exit polls have given AAP 146-175 seats and just 69-92 to BJP. The surveys say Congress may be reduced to a single digit with wins in only 3-9 wards.
Facing a strong anti-incumbency of 15 years in power in the unified and then the trifurcated MCD, BJP ran a massive campaign bringing in a number of chief ministers and several Union ministers. The party attacked AAP and accused it of corruption, alleged its nominations were up for the highest bidders, and blamed it for failing to check the air and river pollution. It even charged AAP with preferential treatment to its minister in jail.
BJP promised pucca houses to slum dwellers, ease of doing business for traders, scholarship to girls and self-employment opportunities for women if elected to a fourth consecutive term.
AAP, on its part, centred its campaign on mismanagement of garbage disposal and corruption in the municipal corporation. It promised to clean the city and end the graft while transforming primary schools and the healthcare system.
Recalling how its government, in power in Delhi till 2013, had brought massive development, Congress promised to reduce property tax by half, provide free water purifiers to the poor and start day boarding schools. Its campaign, however, was sluggish, with its central leadership giving it a miss, leaving the candidates to fend for themselves.
Meanwhile, the state election commission said on Tuesday that arrangements were made at 42 counting centres to count the 73.2 lakh votes polled on Sunday. “The commission has deployed 68 election observers under whose supervision the counting of votes will be carried out by the returning officers in presence of the candidates or their representatives,” an SEC statement said. “The commission has also deployed 136 engineers from ECIL to attend to any technical issues arising in EVMs.”