Delhi Results: BJP Crashes To Seven Seats As AAP Bigwigs Sisodia And Amanatullah Shrug Off Defeat Scare

The BJP’s Delhi assembly campaign appears to be ending on a disappointing note for the party as it may end up with seven seats or less. The party was leading on as many as 22 at the start of the polling. The AAP is all set to bag the rest 63 as the Congress is heading towards a duck.

Many speculated that a lack of a robust state leadership and a credible opposition face to counter Arvind Kejriwal sealed the fate for the BJP. State BJP leader Manoj Tiwari was considered by many as an underwhelming option.

The BJP which was also on route towards causing a major upset by defeating incumbent Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tasted disappointment in the last counting stages when he turned things around by winning the Patparganj seat with a narrow margin.

Even controversial AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan was briefly trailing from Okhla - home to the infamous Shaheen Bagh protests, but is now leading by a margin of over 36,000 votes. AAP leader Atishi Marlena too survived a scare and is now leading by a margin of over 9,000 votes.

Amanatullah Khan had courted controversy in the run up to the elections after being booked for inciting an anti-CAA mob.

BJP’s popular social media personalities Kapil Mishra and Tajinder Bagga who were given a ticket from Model Town and Hari Nagar respectively could not maintain their earlier lead and were overtaken by their AAP counterparts.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had a smooth sailing and he is currently leading by almost 15,000 votes against BJP’s Sunil Kumar Yadav.

The silver lining for the BJP has been an increase in its vote share by over 6 percentage points as compared to the 2015 polls. It currently stands at 38.86 per cent which is the highest for the party since the 1993 elections which it won under the leadership of Madan Lal Khurana.

The Delhi election campaign had seen heated scenes with controversial protests like Shaheen Bagh coming to the forefront and the BJP ultimately unleashing its big guns like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the campaign.

The campaign also saw high drama when two shooting incidents happened at Jamia and Shaheen Bagh. It was later revealed that the Shaheen Bagh shooter in question was an AAP member.