Eight of the nine women candidates fielded by the AAP in the Delhi Assembly polls won, helping the party register a thumping election victory on Tuesday.
The three prominent parties — the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress — had fielded a total of 24 women candidates, with the Congress accounting for a maximum of 10 of them.
The AAP had fielded nine women candidates, while the BJP had given tickets to five women.
AAP’s Atishi, who had unsuccessfully contested last year’s Lok Sabha polls from the East Delhi constituency, was fielded from Kalkaji in place of sitting MLA Avtar Singh Kalka. She won the seat by a margin of over 11,300 votes. After the first few rounds of counting of votes, Atishi was trailing BJP’s Dharambir Singh, but later emerged victorious.
Dhanwati Chandela, who quit the Congress to join the AAP ahead of the polls, won the Rajouri Garden seat, defeating BJP’s Ramesh Khanna by a margin of 22,972 votes. She was also one of the richest candidates in the fray. Chandela had unsuccessfully contested the Rajouri Garden bypolls in 2017 and lost to Manjinder Singh Sirsa. She is the wife of former Congress MLA Dayanand Chandela.
Rajkumari Dhillon, another former Congress leader who joined the AAP ahead of the polls, won the Hari Nagar seat, defeating BJP’s Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga by a margin of over 20,000 votes.
AAP’s Bandana Kumari retained the Shalimar Bagh seat by defeating another woman candidate, BJP’s Rekha Gupta, by a margin of over 3,400 votes. In 2015, she had won the seat by a margin of over 10,900 votes.
Preeti Tomar of the AAP defeated BJP’s Tilak Ram Gupta by a margin of over 10,700 votes to win the Tri Nagar seat. Her husband, Jitender Tomar, had won the seat in 2015 by a margin of 22,311 votes. In January, the Delhi High Court set aside the 2015 election of Jitender Tomar for allegedly giving a false declaration regarding his educational qualification in his nomination papers. Following this, the AAP decided to field Preeti Tomar from the constituency.
Bhavna Gaur of the AAP won the Palam seat by defeating BJP’s Vijay Pandit. In 2015, Gaur had won the seat by a margin of over 30,800 votes.
AAP’s Pramila Tokas won the RK Puram seat, defeating BJP’s Anil Kumar Sharma by a margin of over 10,000 votes. She had won the seat in 2015 by a margin of over 19,000 votes.
Rakhi Birla of the AAP retained the reserved Mangolpuri seat with a margin of over 30,000 votes by defeating BJP’s Karam Singh Karma. She bettered her 2015 poll performance, when she had won the seat by a margin of over 22,600 votes.
AAP’s Sarita Singh lost to BJP’s Jitender Mahajan by a margin of 13,241 votes from Rohtas Nagar.
The election, largely seen as a battle between the AAP and the BJP, was held on Saturday, sealing the fate of 672 candidates — 593 men and 79 women.
In the 2015 polls, 66 women were in the fray with the AAP, BJP and Congress accounting for 19 of them.
