BJP heading for a huge victory in Delhi
Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP faces a rout after an unchallenged decade, with the BJP heading for a huge victory in Delhi after 26 years.
For the Congress, it is a record it never wanted – three ducks. “Development won, good governance won,” PM Modi said.
Arvind Kejriwal has lost his re-election bid from the New Delhi seat to former two-time BJP MP Parvesh Verma.
He finished around 1,200 votes behind his rival, with the Congress’ Sandeep Dikshit third, a set of results that will also reignite talk over the rift between the two parties – both members of the stuttering INDIA bloc – and if an alliance may have allowed the AAP boss to retain his seat if not his government.
Meanwhile, Verma, hailed as a ‘giant-slayer’ and potential future Chief Minister, following in the footsteps of his father, Sahib Singh Verma, is expected to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Speaking to reporters after his win, he thanked the voters and spoke of a ‘double engine’ government in the city, referring to the BJP in power at the centre and in Delhi, while his wife, Swati Singh Verma, declared, “Today’s victory shows that people have trust in BJP and PM Modi…”
Arvind Kejriwal has held the New Delhi seat since 2013, when he beat Congress stalwart and then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit to herald what would be the AAP’s decade-long rule of Delhi.
The AAP boss’ defeat – announced minutes after his former deputy, Manish Sisodia, surrendered his contest in Janpgura – underlined the scale of his party’s rout in this election.
Bidding for a third consecutive term, Kejriwal and the AAP are, instead, set for a humiliating defeat; at 1pm, the BJP was leading in 48 of Delhi’s 70 Assembly seats and the AAP in 22.