We are coming back to the Race
As the bugle for the battle of Delhi has been sounded, political campaigning and last minute rallies have continued to call for picking the right candidate to govern the national capital. While the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is contesting the elections for its five years of work, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are ready to take on CM Kejriwal on his promises. While the Congress is going to the public and asking for votes on the basis of a 15-year tenure of former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, the ongoing Citizenship Amendment Act issue has also been used by several political players as an electoral bonus.
The BJP, which is contesting on the face of PM Narendra Modi, has not been able to find any specific formula to make a dent on Arvind Kejriwal and his party. After poor performance in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the road to Delhi is not looking easy for the BJP high command.
This even as the newly-elected BJP president JP Nadda has given the command of Delhi to the Home Minister and former BJP President Amit Shah, instead of taking over. Shah often considered the Chanakya of the BJP has always been known to steer the BJ juggernaut to even greater heights. He has made a special plan in Delhi to penetrate Kejriwal’s fort.
Amit Shah is using serious legwork coupled with social media challenging the propects of Kejriwal & his Aam Aadmi Party. Supporting him in this campaign is the ‘Cyber Warrior’ aka the IT cell. Whenever the BJP or its leaders are in trouble this army on social media takes over launching a defensive.
Addressing BJP workers at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the ‘echo of victory’ convention, Amit Shah said that the BJP had won elections which were “considered extremely difficult.”
The debate as of now remains around whether Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will retain power claiming power on electricity, health, schools, and water, etc. or will the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) turn the table banking on ‘Modi, Mandir and persecuted Hindu minorities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan’?
The state cpital votes on Feb 8 and the results will be out on Feb 11. A steep 1.46 crore voters of Delhi will cast their votes on February 8. It remains to be seen whether the BJP will be able to end its 21 years drought in Delhi or will the Sheila factor work wonders giving the grand old party an edge.
A fight that is triangular, the Congress has in recent years been a distant third party that ran Delhi continuously for 15 years between 1998 and 2013.
The lesser know factions have consistently missed the bus in recent times. In the last few polls, Assembly or Lok Sabha, the aggregate vote share of 3 parties – AAP, BJP and Congress – has been over 95 per cent of votes.
In the last Assembly election, the AAP won 67 out of 70 seats, the BJP managed to win only 3 seats and the Congress was out on duck.
In Lok Sabha election 2019, the BJP was leading in 65 out of 70 Assembly segments and Congress led in only 5 Assembly segments, meanwhile AAP faired miserably.
For AAP, the popularity of the mufflerman, along with the good show vis – a vis free water charge, low price of electricity, implementation of Mohalla Clinic and improvement in school infrastructure, etc have given him an edge. That said, the voteshare of the AAP has steadily declined.
BJP has upped the vote share in 2019 Lok Sabha from its past performance in Assembly and MCD elections.
BJP since the 1990s got more than 30 per cent of votes in each election. The base vote of the AAP and Congress has been fluctuating. All eyes are now on both BJP and Congress who would want to make a deep dent into the AAP voteshare.
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