NEW DELHI: If exit polls are to be trusted, the Assembly poll results in the national capital are going to upset Congress, which has been in power for three consecutive terms from 1998-2013, yet again. Scanty presence of party workers and polling agents at counters, set up to facilitate voters, on Saturday were enough to suggest that the contest is largely between the two rivals — BJP and AAP —and Congress was fighting a lost battle.
“I couldn’t see Congress in the race hence I didn’t want to waste my vote. My family has been supporting it for year. It can’t give fight to BJP. And the other reason for deserting Congress is that present government is doing well for the people,” said Girdhari Lal, a voter from Sadar Bazaar. The grand old party suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of AAP in 2015 and has been struggling to regain its foothold in Delhi since then.
The party didn’t win a single seat. Rejecting the exit polls, Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra said that he would wait for the actual results. “Exit polls predicted similar results in Maharashtra and Haryana polls and actual results were far from their prediction,” he said. Some of the voters blamed Congress and leaders for its dismal position. They opined that the party seemed to have conceded its defeat before it started the campaign.Despite the fact that ‘wave’ wasn’t in Congress’ favour, several of party candidates put up spirited show to take up their opponents. Former minister Arvinder Singh Lovely, five-time MLA Mateen Ahmed, Abhishek Dutt, Shivani Chopra, and Alka Lamba fought tooth and nail and made the election a three-cornered contest in their constituencies.