The ruling-BJP on Tuesday lost out in the by-elections to two municipal wards, with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress winning one each.
Results for the by-elections to the Maujpur ward of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation and the Sarai Pipal Thala ward in the North Delhi Municipal Corporation held on May 14 and May 21, respectively, brought consolations for the AAP and the Congress.
The BJP had won comfortable margins in all three corporations when the general elections to the civic bodies were held in April. Of the 272 wards in Delhi, Maujpur and Sarai Pipal Thala had not gone to polls on April 23 as one candidate each had passed away during the campaign.
‘Hush-hush meetings’
Sources in the AAP credited its victory in Maujpur, with a slight margin of around 700 votes, to newly-elected Delhi unit convenor and Babarpur MLA Gopal Rai’s decision to organise a hush-hush, unpublicised, late-night public meeting presided over by Chief Minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal in the run-up to the by-poll. The BJP said it would now strive to “strengthen its base in such weak wards.”
According to the results announced by the Delhi State Election Commission, AAP candidate Reshma won Maujpur ward with a margin of 699 votes. Of the total 26,032 votes cast, Ms. Reshma got 36.01% of the votes.
She narrowly beat out the Congress candidate, Rekha Sharma. For the BJP, the loss in Maujpur could be a minor embarrassment. The ward comes under the parliamentary constituency of Delhi BJP president and north-east Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari and was represented by Sanjay Jain, the BJP’s Leader of the House in the EDMC in the previous term. The ruling party came in third with 22.14% vote share.
In Sarai Pipal Thala, the Congress candidate, Mukesh Kumar Goel, won with a margin of 2,743 votes, beating the BJP’s Mangat Ram Sharma.
Mr. Goel had been the Congress’ Leader of the Opposition in the North Corporation in the last term. This time, however, the Congress was reduced to number three, with the AAP taking the role of the Opposition in all three corporations.
‘A good sign’
With the by-poll results, the AAP’s total tally becomes 49, the Congress’ 31 and the BJP’s total councillors remain 181.
The Congress termed its victory in one ward a good sign. At a press conference, All-India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of Delhi, P.C. Chacko, said the party had succeeded in winning back its traditional voters.
He added that with Mr. Goel winning in Sarai Pipal Thala, which is under Union Minister Harsh Vardhan’s Lok Sabha seat, and the BJP losing in Maujpur, it was a “very big humiliation” for the BJP.
Delhi BJP general secretary Kuljeet Singh Chahal said the area under both wards had “for long been politically unfavourable for BJP” and so the results should not be viewed as any reflection of the people’s mood.
Lessons learnt
“Even in the main polls, the Opposition got around 90 wards. This apart, both the AAP and the Congress need to remember that they only last month lost security deposits in around 140 wards. We shall hence work to strengthen our base in such weak wards,” Mr. Chahal said.
