Team News Riveting
New Delhi, February 8
BJP supporters jumped into a celebration mode outside its Delhi headquarters as the saffron party returned to power in the national capital after more than 26 years with a decisive mandate.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the final results past 7.30 pm with BJP bagging 48 seats in the 70-member Delhi Legislative Assembly. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) faced a humiliating defeat and was confined to 22 seats with most of its heavy weights losing the elections.
BJP supporters danced to the beats of ‘dhol’ and waved party flags, creating a festive atmosphere. Holding up cut outs of a lotus, the BJP’s election symbol, they also smeared each other with saffron-coloured powder. The celebration gained momentum as Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached the party headquarters in the evening and addressed BJP workers.
Thanking the people of Delhi for the mandate, Modi said, “We will return your love hundredfold in the form of development. It is a debt on us that the double engine government of Delhi will repay by developing Delhi at double the pace.”
AAP Chief and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was defeated in New Delhi seat while former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia conceded defeat from his constituency Jangpura and expressed the hope that the BJP would work for the welfare of the people in the area.
BJP’s Parvesh Verma and Tarvinder Singh Marwah emerged as the biggest giant-slayers in the high-octane Delhi Assembly elections, defeating AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in the New Delhi and Jangpura constituencies, respectively.
Delhi Chief Minister and AAP’s candidate from Kalkaji won the assembly seat by a margin of 3,521 votes defeating BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri. According to the Election Commission, Atishi got 52,154 votes, whereas Bidhuri polled 48,633 votes with Congress’s Alka Lamba securing the third place with 4,392 votes.
Gopal Rai, Mukesh Ahlawat and Imran Hussain, who were ministers in the Delhi government, secured victories from Babarpur, Sultanpur Majra, and Ballimaran, respectively, amid what is likely to be a string of losses for senior leaders of the party. Delhi Chief Minister and AAP leader Atishi, meanwhile, was also headed for a victory from her seat in Kalkaji. Saurabh Bharadwaj, another prominent leader and a minister, lost to BJP’s Shikha Roy by a margin of 3,188 votes in Greater Kailash.
As BJP was heading for a landslide victory in the Assembly elections, the General Administration Department of Delhi government issued an order prohibiting the removal of files or documents from the Delhi Secretariat complex without permission from the relevant authorities.
“To address security concerns and the safety of records, it is requested that no files/documents, computer hardware, etc., be taken outside the Delhi Secretariat complex without permission from the GAD,” an official order stated.
