The residents of the national capital voted on Saturday to elect their representatives for the 18th Lok Sabha. The verdict will be out on June 4. But the nearly three-month-old poll battle, which, according to political experts, turned in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the arrest of AAP’s national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, changed its course following the Supreme Court’s grant of his interim bail.
The two-way battle between the AAP-Congress alliance and BJP saw many twists and turns. This week, this newspaper goes deeper to understand what has transpired in the past months, be it the campaign, the allegations, the counter-allegations, the prime poll battles, and most importantly, the public opinion.
SEATS
Delhi houses seven of the 543 parliamentary seats. Although the number seven may not seem very significant in totality, it is significant in terms of importance. Several high-profile names, such as former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former deputy PM L K Advani, ex-Delhi CM Sushma Swaraj, veteran late actor Rajesh Khanna, and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, have contended from Delhi over the years. In the past three elections, Delhi residents have voted overwhelmingly for the single party taking all seven seats.
Interestingly, the winners occupied the treasury bench as the party they contested formed the government.
2024 ELECTIONS
In Delhi, the campaign began two months ago with the announcement of polls and parties fielding their candidates. While the BJP and AAP announced their candidates early, the Congress remained in the doldrums for a long time. After much deliberation at the higher levels, it announced its three candidates for Chandni Chowk, North East, and North West Delhi.
The surprising part was the choice of candidates. While the BJP dropped six of its MPs among the seven and retained only Manoj Tiwari from northeast Delhi, the Congress chose to give the northeast seat to a young firebrand leader, Kanhaiya Kumar, sidelining many seniors, which probably also included former Delhi Congress president Arvinder Singh Lovely’s name.
Though the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) fielded candidates on all seven seats, the fight was mainly between the BJP and INDIA bloc (AAP and Congress)
CONTEST
In the New Delhi seat, which has historically been a BJP stronghold, with the saffron party trumping its opposition in seven of the last ten elections, former Union Minister Sushma Swaraj’s daughter Bansuri Swaraj was fielded against AAP’s
Somnath Bharti.
From ‘Jamna Paar’, i.e., east Delhi, AAP chose to field incumbent Kondli MLA Kuldeep Kumar against BJP’s Harsh Malhotra. Kuldeep Kumar Monu, despite hailing from a Scheduled Caste community, was projected from an unreserved constituency, a move touted by the Chief Minister as “revolutionary.”
The North East constituency, historically a BJP stronghold after its predecessor Jan Sangh, since its inception in 1966, posed an intriguing electoral battle with Congress pitting Kanhaiya Kumar against Manoj Tiwari. Housing an estimated 15.5 lakh people who will use their franchise this time; among them, a significant number of Hindu and Muslim electorates, besides a strong presence of Purvanchalis (natives of eastern UP and Bihar) who comprise 40 per cent of voters, the North East Delhi constituency remained the most keenly watched contest.
South Delhi, home to a diverse mix of residents and a microcosm of the city itself, turned into a hotbed of caste politics in the capital. The BJP’s Ramvir Singh Bhidhuri was pitted against AAP’s Sahi Ram Pehalwan, INDIA bloc candidate.
Caste and community dynamics are the main factors and may influence the poll results with both contestants coming from the same community and village.
West Delhi, the largest of the seven parliamentary constituencies in the city, may also be a nail-biting contest. Though the BJP has remained victorious from the seat in the past two editions of Lok Sabha polls, the AAP’s ‘seasoned’ candidate Mahabal Mishra, supported by the Congress’ vote base, makes the competition even tougher, as the BJP fielded a debutant, Kamaljeet Sehrawat.
Chandni Chowk, situated in the seat of history, amid echoes of ‘Purani Dilli’, is the smallest constituency comprising 7,91,317 male and 6,55,911 female voters. The fight was between Congress JP Aggarwal and BJP’s Praveen Khandelwal.
Northwest Delhi remained in the limelight during the poll season, when the BJP fielded debutant Yogesh Chandolia against Congress’s Udit Raj. With a major civic problem, the voters’ perspective of seeing things may decide the candidates’ fate in North West Delhi.
TWISTS AND TURNS
Even as electioneering was gradually picking up the pace, a massive political storm hit the capital with the arrest of Delhi’s sitting chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal. This changed the entire political landscape and even the poll strategy for all the parties.
Kejriwal was arrested on March 21, and the “city’s political buzz” shifted its base from the CM’s residence to Tihar Prison. While some political pundits predicted that the arrest of the sitting CM would generate a “sympathy wave” in AAP’s favour, others, especially those supporting the saffron clans, refused to buy that argument.
Initially, the campaigning began on a dull note, with Congress yet to announce its candidates, AAP’s complete focus on their convener’s arrest and BJP chalking out a strategy so that the CM’s arrest does not go against the, in any possible way.
The directives to all the 7 candidates from the BJP’s top leadership were clear -- win with a margin of at least 5 lakh votes -- an extremely difficult scenario, given the fact that both AAP and Congress had stitched an alliance.
The month of April in these high-pitched general elections in Delhi was shrouded in politics surrounding the CM’s arrest, protests, allegations, and counter-allegations.
Just on the fourth day of last month, the AAP got a morale booster with the release of its firebrand leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh. His first request to the party workers after walking out from Tihar Jail was not to rejoice in his release until other senior party leaders were also out.
While AAP shifted its poll gear and started a unique “Jail Ka Jwaab vote se” campaign that was reaching the masses, on April 14, Delhi Minister Raaj Kumar Anand resigned from both his post and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over what he called the party’s downfall from an anti-corruption group to a party “that’s dipped in corruption”.
The outgoing minister also accused AAP of “discriminatory practices” in staffing leadership positions in the party, saying the party doesn’t respect Dalit ministers, MLAs, and councillors. AAP’s campaign was again derailed, yet the party men maintained their position and continued raising their voices.
Even as the campaigns of both rivals—BJP and AAP—continued with full force, the INDIA bloc partners were again hit with a massive jolt. Delhi Congress president Arvinder Singh Lovely resigned from his post on April 28, and a mere 20 days before the polling day in Delhi, he joined the saffron ranks along with his supporters on May 4.
INDIA bloc got the proper reprieve at the right time when the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Kejriwal, injecting a spirit to fight the elections into the veins of the AAP leaders and workers. A sea of AAP supporters reached Tihar Jail to witness the exact moment when Kejriwal walked out of prison. The message was clear: the contest will be challenging for the BJP.
The last ten days before the high-octane elections marked the entry of top leaders from both sides, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who campaigned for the local candidates.
The Battle Day
The polling day remained peaceful, with sporadic complaints of malfunctioning. The contestants fought with enthusiasm, and parties strived hard to swing votes in their favour until the last moment.
Several distinct features emerged in conversations with the voters. Despite the contestants’ efforts, the national and contemporary issues overpowered the local development promises.
Enthusiasm among first-time voters was visible as they queued up before the polling booths since early in the morning. Similarly, senior citizens reached their polling booths early to beat the heat.
In northeast Delhi, where an election was being conducted for the first time after the 2020 communal riots, the voters reached the polling booths in large numbers to exercise their franchise.
The surprising part was that the “communal clashes” in which 54 people were killed probably had little to no effect on the voters.
“We witnessed the riots upfront; others have probably forgotten those terrible times and moved on. However, the current issues are inflation and unemployment;
that’s what people are grappling with; that’s what they will cast their vote on,” 55-year-old Mohammed Saleem told us.
While all went well, the concerning part was that Delhi’s overall voting percentage across seven parliamentary constituencies stood at 54.3% — more than 6% lower than the previous 2019 election when the Capital city recorded a 60.6% turnout.
In the world’s largest democracy, the Lok Sabha elections may be considered a cornerstone of political participation and representation. However, beneath the veneer of democratic fervour lies a pressing concern–low voter turnout.
While BJP is hopeful of repeating its stellar performance of the last elections, the INDIA bloc, with rejuvenated energy, banks on multiple issues like anti-incumbency, inflation and rise in unemployment that may hamper the poll prospects of the saffron party.