BJP's Muslim candidates failed to win a single seat.
The BJP may have registered a stunning victory in polls to the three municipal corporations in Delhi but all its five Muslim candidates lost in their respective wards. Except BJP candidate Rubeena Begum from Quraish Nagar, the four remaining Muslim candidates of the party finished a distant third.
The BJP had fielded six candidates from the Muslim community for the MCD elections, but the nomination of one candidate was later cancelled by the Delhi State Election Commission. In North Delhi's Quraish Nagar ward, Aam Aadmi Party candidate Shaheen defeated BJP nominee Rubeena by 2,579 votes. Shaheen polled 9,409 votes while Rubeena received 6,830 votes in the area.
In the other four wards, BJP candidates finished a lowly third. BJP candidate Kunwar Rafi from Zakir Nagar ward was defeated by both AAP and Congress. Kunwar lost to Shoaib Danish who won the Zakir Nagar ward for the third time.
A total of 14 Muslim candidates have won in all three municipal corporations. In South Delhi, two Muslim candidates won while six each emerged victorious in the North and East Municipal Corporations.
After its abysmal performance in the 2015 Delhi Assembly polls when it could manage to win just three seats, the BJP added muscle to its decade-long domination of the corporations effortlessly bucking anti-incumbency, with the electorate giving a thumbs up to its gamble of fielding all fresh faces. The results are being seen as a ringing endorsement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's policies and a reflection of his unmatched popularity.
Taking forward its stupendous electoral successes in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the BJP won 181 seats, putting paid to Congress' hopes of a revival in the national capital which it ruled uninterruptedly for 15 years between 1998 and 2013. Congress could win just 30 seats.
The BJP's corporation-wise tally is: SDMC - 70, NDMC - 64 and EDMC - 47 as against AAP's 16, 21 and 11 and Congress' 12, 15 and 3 wards. AAP's abject defeat, which came close on the heels of its abysmal performance in the Assembly polls in Goa, where it failed to open account, and poorer than expected show in Punjab, does not portend well for the party which is bracing itself for a bigger battle in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home turf Gujarat. Assembly election is Gujarat is due later this year.
As the AAP hit a political low after successive jolts in the Punjab and Goa Assembly polls, and the Rajouri Garden Assembly bypoll here, there were murmurs of discontent in the party. Its Delhi convenor Dilip Pandey resigned while Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba offered to step down owing responsibility for the debacle, pointing towards an impending churning in the party.
Delhi's Water Resources Minister Kapil Mishra, a popular face, called for "introspection" instead of raking up the issue of alleged manipulation of EVMs. Modi expressed his gratitude to the people of Delhi for reposing faith in the BJP and ensuring its resounding victory. "I laud the hardwork of team @BJP4Delhi which made the resounding MCD win possible," he tweeted.
In his first reaction, Kejriwal promised all cooperation to the civic bodies and refrained from commenting on EVMs, the "manipulation" of which he had identified as the reason behind AAP's string of poll upsets.
"I congratulate BJP on their victory in all 3 MCDs. My govt looks forward to working wid MCDs for the betterment of Delhi," Kejriwal, who went into a huddle with top leaders of the AAP as the results trickled in early in the day, tweeted.
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