NEW DELHI: Will the AAP retain the throne? Can the BJP break its 21-year exile from the city? Is it possible for the Congress to regain lost glory?
On Saturday, Delhiites will cast ballot to decide their MLAs for the seventh Assembly and choose their chief minister. While the AAP is banking on its works done in five years, the BJP is pushing the game towards polarisation relying on Shaheen Bagh and the likes.
The election is going to be a litmus test for all three political parties. For AAP, this election is a ‘do or die’ situation. Delhi is the only state where the party has a significant presence.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, AAP had to face a humiliating defeat in Delhi. It could secure only 18 per cent of the total votes polled.
Since its meteoric rise to power in 2015, the AAP has not won a single election in Delhi. Even in the 2017 MCD polls, the party came second with 54 per cent vote share.
For BJP, Delhi election is a chance to bounce back after loss in Jharkhand polls. It is a matter of prestige for the BJP, which swept all the seven parliamentary seats in Delhi in 2019 as well as in 2014.
With nothing to lose, the Congress is fighting to regain lost ground. It was defeated in all the 70 Assembly seats in 2015. The challenge for the Grand Old Party will be is to win over its traditional votes — Muslims and residents of unauthorised colonies — that almost entirely shifted to the AAP.