New Delhi: A day after sweeping the municipal bypolls by winning four out of the five wards, the AAP on Thursday said failing to win even one seat is a major setback for the BJP which is on a decline in Delhi.
The Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) on Wednesday swept the municipal bypolls in Delhi winning four of the five seats while the Congress bagged one and the BJP drew a blank.
Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader and chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj claimed the BJP’s vote share decreased in all the wards in which by-elections were held on February 28.
“The business class, who are the traditional voters of the BJP, has also shifted from the BJP to the AAP,” Bhardwaj claimed at a press conference.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor, however, said instead of analysing BJP’s performance in the bypolls, Bhardwaj should find reasons why the AAP was rejected by its traditional voters, the minority community, in Chauhan Bangar ward.
AAP candidate Mohammad Ishraq Khan was defeated by over 10,000 votes by Congress candidate Chaudhary Zubair Ahmad in Chauhan Bangar ward.
The BJP should wake up now because in its stronghold Shalimar Bagh, the party’s vote share has come down from 48 per cent to 36 per cent, Bhardwaj claimed.
“In 16 booths of Shalimar Bagh’s posh colonies, BJP’s vote percentage came down from 45 per cent to 40 per cent while AAP’s vote share increased from 35 per cent to 53 per cent,” he claimed.
The Delhi BJP led by its president Adesh Gupta pursued the politics of campaigning to demand funds from the Kejriwal government while neglecting cleanliness in colonies, that annoyed even its traditional voters, he said.
“The BJP failed to win even one seat in the bypolls and was totally wiped out. This is an important issue as it is considered that the party in power usually wins the by-elections as well. By that logic, this is a major setback for the BJP,” Bhardwaj said.
In Trilokpuri ward, the AAP’s vote share increased from 35 per cent to 49.9 per cent, while that of Congress declined from 16.6 per cent to 1.6 per cent, he claimed.
In Kalyanpuri, AAP’s vote share rose from 33 per cent to 56 per cent; BJP’s vote share declined from 30 per cent to 28 per cent and that of Congress dipped from 21 per cent to 10 per cent, he claimed.
Kapoor said though the AAP won four of the five wards in the by-elections, the loss at Chauhan Bangar was “extremely shameful” for the party.
“It would have been better if instead of spending his time analyzing the bypolls results as loss for the BJP, Bhardwaj had analysed and told Delhi why his party was totally rejected by the minority community of Chauhan Bangar,” he said.
The Delhi BJP spokesperson admitted that the loss of Shalimar Bagh ward was a “setback” for the party and asserted that it will stage a comeback in municipal corporation elections in 2022.
AAP’s vote share rise in four wards has been by large due to shift of Congress voter towards it, he added.
