NEW DELHI: A day after its victory in civic by-polls, the Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday said that the results indicate that even the traditional vote bank of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) residents of posh colonies have shifted towards them.
Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader and chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj claimed the BJP’s vote share decreased in all the wards in which by-elections were held on February 28. “BJP Delhi chief Adesh Gupta’s cheap politics has distanced even the conventional voters of BJP.
The general belief was that the business class forms the traditional voter of the BJP whereas the professional, poor and the common man form the vote bank of the Aam Aadmi Party. These well-off business class voters have distanced and Gupta has irritated even these conventional voters” said Bhardwaj. AAP won four out of five wards in MCD bypolls.
Party even won the Shalimar Bagh seat, over which the BJP has always had a stronghold. The BJP should wake up now because in its stronghold Shalimar Bagh, the party’s vote share has come down from 48 per cent to 36 per cent, Bhardwaj claimed.
“In 16 booths of Shalimar Bagh’s posh colonies, BJP’s vote percentage came down from 45 per cent to 40 per cent while AAP’s vote share increased from 35 per cent to 53 per cent,” he said. The defeat in this ward has been a matter of introspection for the BJP which lost an existing seat and finished at winning zero seats. AAP has gotten a major boost though the results of these by-polls before the main MCD elections take place next year for 272 wards.