Congress gets support of slums, illegal colonies

The bypoll results in the 13 wards on Tuesday made it clear that the municipal elections scheduled to be held in April 2017 in the national capital will be a triangular contest. The splendid show put up by the Congress clearly indicates that the battered and shattered party had been able to retain its vote share it had lost in the last Assembly elections to the AAP in unauthorised colonies, jhuggi clusters, villages, among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and a section of the government employees. However, the results showed that the Congress had failed to retain its Muslim vote share lost to the AAP in the Assembly polls.

The unsatisfactory performance of the AAP is being interpreted in the political circles as a referendum on the party’s one-year governance in Delhi. And poor-show of the BJP, which heads all the three municipal bodies, is being attributed to anti-incumbency. However, both the Congress and the BJP are likely to corner the AAP in the upcoming Assembly polls in Punjab and Goa.

The victory of the Delhi Congress in Quamuruddin Nagar, Munirka, Khichripur and Jhilmil and that of its rebel candidate, Rajender Singh Tanwar, who swept Bhatti ward, has surprised one and all as this is the first occasion when the party has registered its victory in these wards since the 2007 municipal polls. The Delhi Congress was also successful in increasing its vote share from a mere 7.99 per cent in the last Assembly poll to 24.87 per cent. With the joining of the rebel candidate, the party’s vote share has gone up to about 32 per cent. The increase in vote share of the Congress is the direct loss to the AAP.

The outcome of the civic bypolls has not only injected a fresh dose of energy in the Congress workers, it has also established former Union minister Ajay Maken, who was given charge of the Delhi Congress after it was washed off in all the 70 Assembly seats last year, will lead his party in the next year’s municipal polls. Also, the party’s dramatic comeback in the city politics has made Mr Maken the new face of the Congress in Delhi. After former chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the AAP last year, questions were being raised in the party quarters as who could be the Delhi Congress’ new chief against chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in the next Assembly polls.

Despite its increase in vote share from 32.08 per cent in the Assembly poll to 34.11 per cent in the municipal byelections, the BJP could wrest control of only three wards — Shalimar Bagh (North), Wazirpur and Nawada. While the saffron party had fielded three former legislators in the bypolls, only Dr Mahender Nagpal was able to register his victory in Wazirpur. Former MLA Vinod Kumar Binny lost to the Congress from Khichripur by a margin of about 1,000 votes and ex-MLA Jitender Singh Shunty was defeated by the Congress candidate in Jhilmil by a margin of over 2,000 votes.

If the victory margins of the Congress and AAP winners are any indication, the Delhi Congress candidates have performed far better than the latter. For instance, the Congress won Quamuruddin Nagar by logging 15,892 votes against the BJP which got 8,458 votes and the AAP ended up at third spot by securing 7,922 votes. In Jhilmil, the Congress got 10,318 votes, the BJP 7,899 votes and the AAP again ended up at third spot by getting just 2,419 votes.

It was only in Ballimaran that the AAP beat the BJP by over 2,000 votes. Surprisingly, the Congress candidate was just short of 200 votes against his saffron rival. In Vikas Nagar too, the AAP won against the BJP by over 1,000 votes. While the AAP won the Tehkhand ward by about 1,500 votes, it registered its victory in Nanakpura and Matiala with less than 1,000 votes.