Marked by the BJP aggressively raising the anti-CAA protests in Shaheen Bagh as a poll issue, the AAP hardselling development and the Congress conspicuous by its near absence, the bitter, often divisive and vitriolic campaign for the Delhi elections ended on Thursday.
In their final electioneering push, the three key parties made last ditch efforts to seek votes and slugged it out over issues ranging from the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, appeasement politics and unemployment. The campaign that lasted for over three weeks ended at 6pm on Thursday, just 38 hours before the start of voting for the high-stakes Delhi assembly election.
There are 672 candidates in fray for 70 assembly seats.
Over 1.47 crore total voters in various categories include males (81,05,236), females (66,80,277), service voters (11,608), third gender voters (869), and senior citizens (aged 80 and above) voters (2,04,830), according to Delhi CEO Office.
The elections will take place on February 8 and results will be declared on February 11.
Key constituencies:
In New Delhi seat, AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will face off against BJP’s Sunil Kumar Yadav—a youth leader—and Congress’ Romesh Sabharwal. Kejriwal is widely expected to be a shoo-in.
In Patparganj, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia—AAP's face for development politics—will pitch his cards against BJP’s Ravinder Singh Negi and Congress’ Laxman Rawat. In 2015, Sisodia had defeated BJP's Vinod Binny by around 30,000 votes.
In Chandni Chowk, Alka Lamba, who jumped from AAP to Congress, will face Prahlad Singh Sawhney, who jumped from Congress to the AAP. Sawhney is a five-time MLA.
In Gandhi Nagar, Anil Bajpai—one of the two MLAs who rebelled and was disqualified from the AAP last year—will fight on a BJP ticket against big-name Congress leader Arvinder Lovely. AAP has fielded a fresh face in Naveen Chaudhary there.
Then, there are other constituencies like Laxmi Nagar, where BJP's Abhay Verma will face AAP’s Nitin Tyagi and Congress candidate Hari Dutt Sharma.
In Model Town, BJP leader Kapil Mishra—who had chanted the now-infamous Desh ke gaddaron ko... slogan at a pro-CAA rally—will look to unseat AAP's sitting MLA Akhilesh Pati Tripathi with, Akanksha Ola fighting for the seat from the Congress.
In Muslim-majority constituencies like Seelampur, contested between Congress’ Mateen Ahmed, AAP's Abdul Rehman (the party dropped the sitting MLA and went for a new face) and BJP's Kaushal Mishra, key issues like the CAA will find major resonance. The region has already witnessed violent protests over the issue.
PM Modi had directly pitted the BJP against the anti-CAA protesters on multiple occasions. "Be it Seelampur, Jamia (Nagar) or Shaheen Bagh, for the last several days, there have been protests over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Are these protests coincidental. No, this is not coincidental, it is an experiment," Modi had said. Behind the protests, Modi added, is a political design aimed at harming national harmony. In Okhla's Shaheen Bagh, hundreds of people, including women and children, have been protesting since December 15 at Shaheen Bagh against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens.
But, Kalkaji assembly constituency would be one of the seats that best represents the ongong fight. With a very diverse voter list, consisting of Purvanchalis (who are a significant part of Delhi polls), Sikh refugees, slum and JJ cluster dwellers, the seat will witness a hard fight on all issues that the AAP and the BJP hold close to their hearts.
Shivani Chopra, a barrister banking on her father's legacy in the Congress, Aatishi, an educationist attempting her luck second time in elections on an AAP ticket, and Dharamveer Singh, a BJP candidate relying on the saffron party's aggressive campaign, form the three major contenders.
A section of voters feel though the Shaheen Bagh protest site is far from Kalkaji area, the anti-CAA protests there, now running for over 50 days, will "have a bearing" on the elections that is largely being seen as a triangular contest among the three parties.
Shivani Chopra, younger daughter of three-time Congress MLA and its Delhi unit chief Subhash Chopra is exuding confidence, hopeful of leveraging the party veteran's legacy, besides the development-centric manifesto of the grand old party seeking resurgence in the elections. On Twitter, her profile describes her as a "Barrister; Cross-country cyclist; Certified yoga teacher; Travel blogger; Techno DJ; Animal/planet lover (hence Vegan)".
Pitted against the Congress' woman candidate is AAP's Atishi, who unsuccessfully fought the Lok Sabha polls from East Delhi last year. An Oxford University graduate, she says education and health has been two of the main components of the Kejriwal government, besides, women empowerment. "The AAP, in the last five years, has relentlessly fought to achieve what other states and governments couldn't, and will continue to do so in the next five years as promised in the new AAP manifesto," she said. She also claims that the BJP plans to fight elections "without a CM face or vision for Delhi's future". "Reminds us of the times they bulldozed bills in the Parliament without any proper planning. #KejriwalChallengesShah to reveal BJP's CM candidate for Delhi," she said in a recent tweet.
Completing the triangular contest is BJP's Dharamveer Singh, who feels the Modi government's works in Delhi will give his party an edge.
The Kalakaji seat was won by the AAP in 2015 Delhi polls, but the party has not fielded its sitting MLA Avtar Singh, which has upset many locals.
Hard fought election campaign
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal pulled no punches in attacking rivals on the new citizenship law, unemployment and appeasement politics.
As the scions of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty jumped into the campaign mode for the first time in the February 8 polls, Modi trained his guns at the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress, saying Delhi needs a government that will not resort to appeasement but support the Citizenship Amended Act(CAA), abolition of Article 370 and issues of national security.
Rahul Gandhi for his part accused the BJP and AAP of spreading hatred in the society. He also accused the government of selling state enterprises such as IndianOil, Air India, Hindustan Petroleum and the railways as well as the Red Fort, and said, "He (Modi) may even sell the Taj Mahal".
Priyanka Gandhi attacked Modi over the issue of job losses and took a dig at his "sanyog-prayog" remarks on Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of anti-CAA protests in Delhi, asking whether the rise in unemployment was a coincidence or his experiment.
At a poll rally on Monday, Modi said the protests against the new citizenship law in Shaheen Bagh and other areas here are not a coincidence but an "experiment" ("sanyog nahi prayog") and a political conspiracy to destroy the country's harmony.
Kejriwal said Union Home Minister Amit Shah wants to fight the entire election on Shaheen Bagh protests and that the BJP has no other issue.
"The BJP will not talk about anything else because they have nothing else to talk about. Just Shaheen Bagh, Shaheen Bagh, Shaheen Bagh, Hindu-Muslim , Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim and Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan...That is all they do," Kejriwal told NDTV.
In his second rally in the city in two days, Modi touched on various issues, including surgical strikes and his government's flagship Ayushman Bharat scheme. "You must punish those who insult the armed forces. You should vent your anger through your vote. Delhi does not need a government which gives opportunity to enemies to attack us," he told the rally in Dwarka.
He said the national capital also needs a government that will give direction and not resort to blame game. The anti-CAA protests in Shaheen Bagh and other places in the city did not find any mention in his speech, unlike his address in Karkardooma on Monday when he said they were not a coincidence but a political conspiracy to destroy the country's harmony.
"Delhi needs a government that will not resort to appeasement but support the CAA, abolition of (special provisions of) Article 370 and issues of national security," he said in a speech that lasted a little over an hour. He also accused the opposition of spreading lies and rumours about the CAA, a legislation which seeks to give citizenship to the persecuted minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Muslims have been excluded from it.
The prime minister accused the Kejriwal government of not implementing the Ayushman Bharat scheme, the flagship initiative of the Centre, in the national capital and asked if the AAP government's 'mohalla clinics' will work if Delhiites fall sick outside the city. "The people of Delhi have seen how the AAP government practises the politics of hate," he said.
"People of Delhi have seen how the (AAP) government practises politics of hate. Delhi needs a government that will give direction and not resort to blame game."
Rahul Gandhi alleged that Modi and Kejriwal were not interested in providing jobs to youngsters, but were keen on making one Indian fight another for staying in power. He said the current environment in the country, the hatred, the violence and the attacks on women were harming India and people were not benefitting from it. "Modi and the BJP may be benefitting from it, but Indians are not. If you want development and employment, you will have to erase hatred from the hearts of people," the former Congress president told a party rally in Jangpura.
He hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for not addressing the economic slowdown and the issue of unemployment, but instead, encouraging violence. The aim of the BJP and the AAP was to spread hatred in the society, something the Congress could never do, Gandhi said. He also slammed Modi for not talking about the economy and unemployment in his poll speeches and said the prime minister did not have the guts to do it. "Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal have nothing to do with this (creating jobs). They want to make one Indian fight another and stay in power," Gandhi added. Alleging that Modi and Kejriwal could only think about power, he said, "They can announce anything in two minutes to stay in power."
The BJP also drafted its 240 MPs in its push to regain power in Delhi and asked them to campaign for the party in colonies populated mostly by poor voters. The party president J P Nadda made this announcement at its parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday, party sources said.
The AAP focused its campaign on development work done by its government. In an interview to PTI, Kejriwal assured that the Delhi government's 'free schemes' will continue if AAP is voted back to power and also introduce more schemes if needed. The entire AAP campaign, which started before the polls were announced, was piloted by Kejriwal. He addressed nearly 200 events that included road shows, public meetings and town halls.
The AAP held silent marches against the BJP in all 70 constituencies for three days to protest against a BJP leader's "terrorist" remarks against him. The party also launched a door-to-door campaign, asking voters to support Kejriwal if they believed he is a "son of Delhi" and vote for the BJP if they feel he is a "terrorist".
On the last day of the campaign, Home Minister Amit Shah took out three roadshow at Seelampur in northeast Delhi, and Hari Nagar and Madipur in west Delhi. "During the elections (campaigning), got a chance to communicate with Delhi people. Delhi is suffering from anarchy and needs development. It is clear from the support for the BJP in Delhi that the party is going to form the government by winning more than 45 seats on February 11," Shah asserted.
BJP president J.P. Nadda also took out two roadshows in Nangloi Jat and Mangolpuri in northwest Delhi while Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia did a 'padayatra' (walk) in his Patparganj constituency in east Delhi.
Speeches and tweets with communal undertones, and poll claims that violated the Model Code of Conduct kept the poll authorities on their toes all through the campaign. The BJP, which started the campaign with a focus on the development work done by the Centre for the national capital, took a sharp turn and made Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of anti-CAA protest in southeast Delhi, its main poll plank.
The saffron party's campaign saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi address two rallies while Shah addressed many more. Nadda and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath were also in full throttle over the Shaheen Bagh protest and attacked the Congress and the AAP.
The BJP till Wednesday had organised 5,239 campaigning events, said Praveen Shankar Kapoor, co-convenor of the Delhi BJP's media team for election said. This includes two rallies by Modi.
Shah covered 60 constituencies that comprised 'nukkad sabhas', road shows, workers meet, while Nadda criss-crossed across all 70 constituencies, Kapoor added. Apart from its MPs and MLAs, the BJP also roped in chief ministers of party-ruled states— Vijay Rupani (Gujarat), Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), N Biren Singh (Manipur), M L Khattar (Haryana), Jairam Thakur (Himachal Pradesh)— to canvass for its candidates.
The campaign got bitter when Union Minister Anurag Thakur, in a rally, egged the crowd to say 'shoot the traitors', and the party's West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma made a controversial statement on Shaheen Bagh. Both Thakur and Verma were banned from campaigning for 72 and 96 hours respectively and also dropped from the party's star campaigner's list.
On Wednesday, Verma was again barred from campaigning while Adityanath was issued a show-cause notice on Thursday for his alleged 'biryani for terrorist' remarks.
-Inputs from PTI
