DELHI POLLS 2014 - Part VII

THE BIG WINNERS AND LOSERS

It is but imperative that we start this post by lauding the efforts of the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi Chandra Bhushan Kumar, his entire team and the security forces in making sure that the whole voting process went on smoothly. In spite of the fact that Delhites were voting for the third time in last 14 months, they came out in record numbers to exercise their democratic right. The voting percentage was a little over 67 much more than that seen during the Lok Sabha polls which shows that we Indians have still not lost faith in the political system.

With the AAP having swept the polls, winning a staggering 67 of the 70 seats, it is but natural that all of its top guns have won their respective constituencies. Leading the list of the big winners is the party chief Arvind Kejriwal who retained the prestigious New Delhi seat by a mrgin of over 31,000 votes beating Nupur Sharma of the BJP and Kiran Walia of the Congress. His close aide and former state cabinet minister Manish Sissodia too was successful from Patparganj where he beat his former colleague Vinod Kumar Binny who was fighting on a BJP ticket. Meanwhile, former ministers Somnath Bharati and Rakhi Bildan who were in the news for all the wrong reasons during the AAP's 49 day regime emerged victorious from Malviya Nagar and Mangol Puri respectively.

Other prominent winners from the AAP include former ministers - Satyendra Kumar Jain (Shakur Basti), Saurabh Bharadwaj (Greater Kailash) and Girish Soni (Madipur) and former Congress leader Alka Lamba (Chandini Chowk).

Considering that only three BJP candidates were able to tide over the AAP tsunami, they deserve to be in the list of the winners. These include Om Prakash Sharma (Vishwas Nagar), Vijendra Kumar (Rohini) and Jagdish Pradhan (Mustafabad).

The casualties in the saffron camp were many. Perhaps, the biggest amongst them was the party's CM candidate Kiran Bedi herself who lost from Krishna Nagar which is believed to be a BJP strong hold since it has been nurtured by former state party leader and Union Minister Dr. Harshavardhan. She was beaten by AAP candidate S K Bagga by a margin of over 2,400 votes. Another well known state leader Prof. Jagdish Mukki had to bite the dust from Janakpuri as he lost out to his rival Rajesh Rishi by over 25,00 votes. Meanwhile, former AAP leaders who had joined the BJP ahead of the polls including former Speaker M S Dhir (Jangapura) and Vinod Kumar Binny (Patparganj) too were beaten. Similarly, former Union Minister Krishna Tirath who had jumped to the saffron camp from the Congress lost from the Patel Nagar constituency. Also, former DU president Nupur Sharma who was pitted against AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal lost by over 30,000 votes.

For the Congress, its campaign chief Ajay Maken lost his deposit from Sardar Bazaar having been beaten by AAP's Som Dutt who polled over 67,000 votes. Like him, former Child and Women Welfare Minister Dr. Kiran Walia lost to the AAP chief having got just over 4,700 votes. Other bigger losers from the party include Muslim faces - Shoaib Iqbal (Matia Mahal) and Haroon Yusuf (Congress), President's daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee (Greater Kailash) and Dr. Yoganand Shastri (Malviya Nagar).

For all posts in this series on Delhi Elections 2015, click here (Link)