NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has not only retained all seven parliamentary seats in the national capital but has also improved its victory margins on each seat, in a big departure from the 2014 elections.
The winning margins range between 5.78 lakh and 2.28 lakh votes, up from between 2.68 lakh and 1.07 lakh votes in the 2014 general elections. The saffron party has set new records in five constituencies where its candidates defeated their opponents with the highest margins ever.
Highest winning margin of 5,78,486 was registered in the West Delhi Lok Sabha seat, where Parvesh Verma emerged victorious with 8,65,648 votes. He bagged a staggering 60.05% of the total votes polled. His closest rival, Congress’ Mahabal Mishra secured only 2,87,162 votes. The Aam Aadmi Party’s Balbir Singh Jhakar stood third with 2,51,873 votes.
In the 2014 polls, Verma won the same seat with the margin of 2,68,586 votes, the highest margin of victory among all the winning BJP candidates.
The second highest winning margin was recorded in North-West Delhi, where the BJP fielded Punjabi folk singer Hans Raj Hans against Rajesh Lilothia of the Congress and AAP’s Gugan Singh. Here, the difference between the winning candidate and his closest rival was 5,53,897 votes.
Hans garnered 8,48,663 votes, about 60.49% of the total votes polled. Singh managed 2,94,766 votes, while Lilothia polled 2,36,882 votes.
In last election, Dalit leader Udit Raj won the seat by 1,06,802 votes. He switched to the Congress after being denied a ticket to contest the seat in the Lok Sabha polls.
In East Delhi constituency, former cricketer-turned-BJP nominee Gautam Gambhir trounced Congress’ Arvinder Singh Lovely, a former Delhi minister, by 3,91,222 votes. Gambhir polled 6,96,156 votes, while Lovely bagged 3,04,934 votes. AAP’s Atishi came a distant third with 2,19,328 votes.
In South Delhi, Ramesh Bidhuri, a sitting MP, defeated AAP’s Raghav Chadha by a record winning margin of 3,67,043 votes. Bidhuri polled 6,87,014 votes, against Chadha’s 3,19,971 votes. Ace boxer Vijender Singh, who was the Congress’ pick against Bidhuri, came third with 1,64,613 votes. He even lost his security deposit. Bidhuri’s previous winning margin was 1,07,000 votes.
In North-East Delhi, which saw a high stakes battle, BJP’s Manoj Tiwari retained the seat by defeating three-time chief minister Sheila Diskhit by a whopping 3,66, 102 votes. Dikshit polled 4,21,697, while Tiwari pulled far ahead with 7,87,799 votes. AAP’s Dilip Pandey got 1, 90, 856 votes. Tiwari’s victory margin in 2014 was 1,36,320 votes.
In the prestigious New Delhi Lok Sabha seat, sitting MP Meenakshi Lekhi defeated former union minister Ajay Maken of the Congress by 2,56,504 votes. However, her winning margin in 2014 was 1,62,708 votes. Lekhi polled 5,04,206 votes against Maken’s 2,47,702 votes. AAP’s Brijesh Goyal stood third with 1,50,342 votes.
BJP’s Chandni Chowk nominee Dr Harsh Vardhan overwhelmed Congress’ Jai Prakash Agarwal by 2,28,145 votes. Vardhan, who had won the same seat by 1,36,320 votes earlier, polled 5,19,055 votes against Agarwal’s 2,90,910. AAP first timer Pankaj Gupta polled 1, 44, 551 votes.
With inputs from Rahiba R Parveen