Outcome of byelections in 13 municipal wards of the city on Sunday will be a litmus test ahead of the 2017 civic body polls for the Congress, the BJP and the AAP. The bypoll results will also be an indicator for the future political survival of the Congress, which was completely washed out not only in all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi but also in all the 70 Assembly segments where it had remained in power for 15 consecutive years.
That’s precisely one of the key reasons that the city Congress left no stone unturned during the bypolls to see to it that it will increase its vote share in the 13 wards. This was for the first time that the Congress gave responsibility of each polling booth to its councillors, former MLAs, parliamentarians and district presidents so that it could pull all its resources to make a comeback in the city politics. Senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Digvijay Singh, actor and Rajya Sabha MP Raj Babbar and former Lok Sabha MP Mahabal Mishra also campaigned relentlessly for their candidates in the byelections.
The bypoll results will also be a testing time for former Union minister Ajay Maken, who was given charge of the party’s Delhi unit after it faced a humiliating defeat in the Assembly polls. A source in the Delhi Congress said the party leadership had made it clear to its local leaders that the bypolls were not only relevant to their own political survival, but they would also set tone for the future Assembly elections in other states. The bypoll results will be crucial for the municipal elections scheduled to be held in all the 272 wards in mid-2017.
If the Congress and the BJP, who are facing AAP for the first time in the municipal polls, are unable to improve their vote share, it will send a clear message that the newbie party is going to stay longer in Delhi politics. And if the AAP is able to repeat its Assembly poll performance in the municipal bypolls, it is bound to boost the morale of its workers campaigning for the Assembly elections in Punjab and Goa.
The results of the last Assembly elections in the municipal wards, where byelections were held, shows that the Congress was not able to secure even 20 per cent votes in any of the 13 wards. While the party had recorded its highest vote share of 17 per cent in the Ballimaran ward, it got just 2.89 per cent votes in the Shalimar Bagh (North).
On the other hand, the saffron brigade was able to secure a maximum of 39.83 per cent votes in Khichripur ward and a lowest of 21.18 per cent votes in Ballimaran. But the AAP had stunned one and all by logging the maximum of 70.84 per cent votes in Tehkhand ward and a lowest of 45.34 per cent in Khichripur.
The BJP, which is in power in all the three municipal corporations, had won seven of the 13 wards in the elections to the then unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi in 2012. The party was able to register its victory in the crucial wards like Nangloi Jat, Shalimar Bagh (North) and Wazirpur, which are now under the North Delhi Municipal Corporation. The party, which could win just three of the 70 seats in the Assembly elections, too left no stone unturned to see it was able to improve its vote share in the bypolls. That’s precisely one of the reasons it gave tickets to experienced candidates. The saffron outfit even fielded former legislators Mahender Nagpal, Jitender Singh Shunty and Vinod Kumar Binny from Wazirpur, Jhilmil and Khichripur wards respectively. The party had roped in its local heavyweight and former Union minister Dr Harsh Vardhan to campaign rigorously in all the wards.
Similar was the case with the AAP, which too roped in senior leaders and city ministers to campaign for candidates in the 13 wards. chief minister Arvind Kejriwal himself held meetings in different wards, but did not address any meeting after dates for the bypolls were announced by the State Election Commission.
