New Delhi: The Aam Admi Party is riding back to power on the back of an impressive performance at the polling booths, predicts the IANS-CVoter ‘Delhi Tracker’ exit poll conducted after voting on February 8. The exit polls indicate that the AAP’s ‘development’ plank has ridden over the BJP’s ‘nationalism’ plank.
As per the exit poll results released, after polling ended on Saturday, the AAP, with an overall vote share of 50.6 per cent, has barely scraped past the halfway mark. The BJP lagged, clocking 36 per cent, while the Congress was trailing far behind with 9 per cent vote share in a bitterly-fought poll battle.
While the AAP tried to promote itself on the development plank, the BJP and Congress had primarily ranged themselves on opposing sides of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.
In terms of seat share, the IANS-CVoter exit poll shows the AAP winning a minimum of 49 seats to a maximum of 63 seats in the 70-member Delhi Assembly. In 2015, the AAP had won 67 seats.
The BJP is predicted to win between a low of 5 seats to a high of 19 seats. It had won 3 seats in 2015.
The Congress is expected to win a maximum of 4 seats. In 2015, the Congress had failed to win even a single seat.
Saturday’s exit polls show that the AAP has maintained the lead it had registered in the pre-poll survey projections, when elections were announced. Findings of the survey on January 6 indicated that AAP would garner 53.3 per cent of votes and end up with close to 59 seats, while the BJP with 25.9 per cent of votes may have to remain content with just eight seats.
The extensive exit poll asked 11,839 respondents after they voted for in the assembly elections. The exit poll was conducted in all 70 assembly constituencies spread across the 7 parliamentary constituencies of Delhi.
The votes will be counted on February 11.
– By Narendra Puppala
Congress messes up; at best may get 4 seats
The Congress seems to be languishing in insignificance in Delhi Assembly polls with a seat projection of anything between zero and four seats, according to the IANS-CVoter Exit Poll.
The Congress had drawn a blank in the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections.
According to the exit poll, the Congress has hardly recovered from its rout in 2015. But many would say that the party’s lacklustre campaign is also to blame for anti-BJP votes getting deflected towards AAP, which is tipped to get anywhere between 49 and 63 seats.
Compared to the high-voltage public meetings organised by the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (AAP) across the national capital, the Congress leadership pitched in only in the last leg of the campaign.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addressed only four public meetings in Delhi, including two addressed along with his sister Priyanka Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi’s maiden public meeting was cancelled due to her ill-health.
The absence of senior Congress leaders from the poll fray has also not gone down well with the party cadres and supporters. After Sonia Gandhi’s intervention, Arvinder Singh Lovely and Rajesh Lilothia entered the poll fray though senior Delhi leaders such as Ajay Maken, Kiran Walia, J.P. Agarwal and the party’s state unit President Subhash Chopra opted out.
And that is now getting reflected in the IANS-CVoter Exit Poll results, according to which the party will either draw a blank again or at best get four seats.
The Congress is expected to win from Chandni Chowk and one seat each from East Delhi, North East Delhi and South Delhi.
The projections are based on personal interviews conducted on the polling day among 18+ adults across the national capital, all confirmed voters. The sample size was 11,839 people.
BJP gains ground, but to stay out of power
It may not look promising for the BJP as far as the Delhi election results are concerned, but it is likely to have gained significant ground, according to the IANS-CVoter Exit Poll.
The BJP, which got just 3 seats in 2015, is likely to get anything between 5 and 19 seats, according to the exit poll.
Even at its worst, it will be a better performance by the BJP in comparison to its 2015 show. At its best, it will be more than five times the BJP’s score in 2015.
So where is it expected to gain ground? According to the exit poll, it is likely to get anything between 1 and 3 seats in Chandni Chowk, East Delhi, New Delhi, West Delhi and North-East Delhi. The saffron party is likely to win anything between zero and 2 seats from North-West Delhi and South Delhi.
To put things into perspective, the last time the BJP won from Rohini, Vishwas Nagar and Mustafabad. Vijender Gupta, Om Prakash Sharma and Jagdish Pradhan won from those seats, respectively.
According to the IANS-CVoter Exit Poll, the BJP has a projected seat share of 36 per cent this time as against 32.2 per cent it got in 2015.
This year, the BJP went all out to win Delhi with Union Home Minister Amit Shah pressing almost all sitting BJP Chief Ministers and majority of its Lok Sabha members to campaign in the national capital.
The BJP held nearly 5,000 rallies and a series of roadshows to make a case for the saffron party, which has been out of power in Delhi for more than two decades now.
But if IANS-CVoter exit poll is anything to go by, the BJP may have to sit in the opposition for another five years.
