AAP ki sarkar: Kejriwal rules Delhi
Swearing-in ceremony on February 14;
Kiran Bedi, Maken lose; Congress draws a blank | BJP suffered rout due to its
‘arrogance,’ says AAP chief, asks partymen to be humble | Modi congratulates
Kejriwal, promises Centre's support for Delhi's growth
The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi
Party on Tuesday swept to power with 67 seats in the 70-member Delhi Assembly,
leaving only three to the Bharatiya Janata Party and nil to the Congress.
The Congress had been in power for
three consecutive terms in the State until 2013 and the BJP had won all seven
Lok Sabha seats in May 2014.
After consecutive wins for the BJP in
Assembly polls across the country in 2014, Tuesday’s defeat was the first
electoral setback for Narendra Modi since he became the Prime Minister in May
last year.
Mr. Modi called and congratulated Mr.
Kejriwal and later tweeted: “Spoke to Arvind Kejriwal and congratulated him on
the win. Assured him Centre’s complete support in the development of Delhi.”
BJP’s chief ministerial candidate
Kiran Bedi lost in Krishna Nagar, a seat won by Union Minister Harsh Vardhan
five times in a row from 1993 to 2013.
Mr. Kejriwal will be sworn in as the
Chief Minister on February 14, exactly a year after he quit the post after 49
days in power in February 2014.
Kejriwal asks party workers, MLAs not
to be arrogant
Addressing party workers outside the
party office after the verdict, Mr. Kejriwal underlined that the BJP has been
routed due to its ‘arrogance.’
Mr. Kejriwal said: “It’s very scary,
the kind of support that the people of Delhi have given us. I would like to
tell all workers and MLAs, don’t be arrogant, else five years later we will be
where the BJP and the Congress are today.”
At 32.2 per cent votes, the BJP
managed to roughly retain its vote share of 2013, but Congress voters appear to
have shifted to the AAP. The Congress share dropped from 24.55 per cent in 2013
to 9.7 per cent, even as the AAP’s share increased from 29.49 per cent in 2013
to 54.3 per cent.
The AAP’s campaign in the months
leading up to the polls focussed primarily on ridding the system of corruption,
lowering water and power bills, women’s security and transforming Delhi into a
world-class city by bringing in structural reforms enumerated through the
series termed ‘Delhi Dialogue’ conducted by the party.
On the other hand, the BJP released a
Vision Document, instead of a poll manifesto, in the last leg of the
high-decibel campaigning, which turned unsavoury on several occasions. The
BJP’s campaign had Mr. Modi as its mascot after its strategy to project Ms.
Bedi as its chief ministerial candidate flopped.
The party pulled out all the stops to
counter Mr. Kejriwal by fielding a battery of Union Ministers and its entire
national leadership. “Chalo Chalen Modi Ke Saath” was the main slogan of the
party. The simmering discontent in the party ever since Ms. Bedi’s sudden
arrival on the scene came out in the open after the party’s rout.
Ms. Bedi, who has been maintaining
that she would take “full responsibility” for the results, said after the
verdict: “I have not lost. Let the BJP assess, they are a national cadre-based
party, I have not lost, I gave my very best.”
Failing to score a single seat, the
crisis in the Congress deepened. Party campaign committee head Ajay Maken
resigned, accepting responsibility but that alone is unlikely to insulate party
vice-president Rahul Gandhi from the fallout.
