The by-elections to the 13 municipal wards this week were supposed to show political parties a glimpse of next year, when elections to Delhi’s civic bodies will be held. After Tuesday’s fractured result, however, the parties that were looking at the by-polls as a trial run for 2017 are now facing an uncertain future.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had only last year taken the city by storm, winning an unprecedented 67 out of 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly with a vote share of 54 per cent.
High expectations
So, in its first time contesting municipal polls, the AAP had high expectations.
While the AAP won five out of 13 seats, the highest for a single party, in Tuesday’s results, its vote share plummeted to 29 per cent.
With the biggest dip in vote share compared to other parties, AAP leaders’ confident claims that they would sweep the 2017 elections are now muted.
Dilip K. Pandey, the convenor of the Delhi unit of the AAP, emphasised that these were the “debut elections” of the party in the municipalities.
Earlier, however, AAP leaders, including spokesperson Deepak Bajpai, had said these polls would give the party a chance to show Delhiites what to expect next year.
Anti-incumbency
The BJP, which will go into the 2017 polls with potentially 10 years’ worth of anti-incumbency against it, has fared the worst in the by-polls.
It failed to retain all seven of the wards it had won in 2012. For the ruling party, there is concern that with the AAP entering municipal politics there could be a shake-up next year.
Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay, who is himself a councillor in the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, denied that the party was worried about next year, saying that these polls would not impact 2017 results.
While the AAP and the BJP were served up a mixed bag, the Congress has taken Tuesday’s results as a sign of resurgence.
The party was knocked down to a mere nine per cent of the vote share in the 2015 Assembly elections.
It managed to not only win four wards, but increase its vote share to 24 per cent.
Ajay Maken, the president of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee, said that next year’s polls would see an even greater vote share for the party.
Yashwant Deshmukh, a political analyst and psephologist with CVoter, summed up Tuesday’s results.
He tweeted: “BIG winner: INC. For getting back its “core” voters. Loser: AAP: For letting “core” voters go. BIG loser: BJP. For doing nothing.” (sic).
He added that the AAP had led in 12 out of the 13 wards in the Delhi Assembly polls in 2015.
While the results don’t change much within the corporations, the BJP and thes Congress are expecting the AAP councillors to raise issues of corruption, with the help of the government.
“The House meetings are going to get noisier,” said a senior Congress leader in the SDMC.
The Congress has decided to take
the mixed bag of results as a sign
of resurgence
