New Delhi: Battered and shattered Congress, whose 67 candidates, including four allies, even lost their security deposits, could not even secure 3,000 votes in 20 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly elections. Even in the six Muslim dominated seats, where the Congress had done exceedingly well in the past elections, the party bagged less than 45,000 votes polled together.
The most worrying factor for the Congress is that it failed to win even a single seat in the two successive Assembly polls, that too after ruling the city for 15 consecutive years. The party’s vote share also reached an all-time low of 4.26 per cent.
In 2013, the Congress had won eight seats by securing 24.55 per cent votes. It was with the support of the Congress MLAs that the Aam Aadmi Party-led by Arvind Kejriwal was able to form his first government, which lasted for only 49 days.
The party’s vote share which dropped to 15.22 per cent in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, went further down to 9.65 per cent in 2015 Assembly polls. But the party’s vote share which went up to 21.09 per cent in municipal polls in 2017 further improved to 22.63 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections where it secured second slot in all the seven Parliamentary seats in Delhi.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had surprised one and all by securing second position in 65 of the 70 Assembly seats. The BJP was able to retain all the seven Lok Sabha seats by securing 57 per cent votes.
The worst ever performance of the Congress in the recent Assembly polls can be gauged from the fact that its candidate got only 908 votes in Delhi Cantonment and 976 votes in Nangloi.
The party’s ally partner, Janata Dal (United) which contested on four seats could get a little over 2,000 votes in only Burari seat. In the remaining three seats in Kirari, Uttam Nagar and Palam, JD (U) secured just 256, 377 and 552 votes respectively.
The Congress polled the maximum of 27,449 votes in Badli, followed by 21,913 votes in Gandhi Nagar and 20,247 votes in Seelampur. The party candidates performed slightly better in Hari Nagar, Jangpura, Adarsh Nagar and Bawana (SC) where its candidates logged between 10,000 to 15,000 votes. In all, the Congress secured between 5,000 and 10,000 votes in 19 seats. These seats included Muslim-dominated Okhla, Babarpur and Mustafabad constituencies.
