Delhi Assembly Election 2020: As AAP, BJP gear up for contest, here's a brief history of previous Delhi Elections

Delhi Assembly Election 2020 dates have been announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI). The Delhi Elections 2020 will take place in the national capital on February 8, according to the ECI schedule, and the results will be declared on February 11.

Here's a brief history of earlier Delhi Assembly Elections:

In the last Delhi Legislative Assembly Elections in 2015, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won a landmark victory after it secured 67 of the total 70 seats in the state legislature. The poll itself was necessitated after Delhi remaining under President's Rule for about a year and the then Delhi governor Najeeb Jung recommending the Union Cabinet to conduct fresh elections, in which AAP emerged with a huge victory, primarily banking on the huge popularity that Kejriwal had been enjoying at the time.

To understand the context further, we would have to go further back to the previous legislative assembly elections in 2013. During the 2013 Delhi Elections, the BJP (along with its pre-poll ally Shiromani Akali Dal) had emerged as the single-largest party in the state, having won 32 out of 70 seats, but failed to form a government with support from others. Consequently, after the governor invited the second-largest party AAP, they formed the Delhi government with Arvind Kejriwal as the Delhi Chief Minister. However, in 2014 he resigned from his post, publicly voicing his discontent regarding his inability to table the Jan Lokpal Bill in the Delhi Assembly due to stiff opposition from other parties. Following this, the state went under President's Rule for about a year after which fresh elections were held, in which Kejriwal emerged as victorious, himself having defeated incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dixit from the New Delhi seat.

The Kejriwal-led AAP government is currently in power. The five-year term of the 70-member Delhi Assembly will end on February 22 and a new House is to be constituted before that.

For the Delhi Assembly Elections 2020, both Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have started gearing up for the polls.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP is eyeing a second consecutive term banking on freebies that it provided to Delhiites including free water, free electricity up to 200 units, free ride for women in DTC and cluster buses, among other measures.

The BJP is, however, banking on star campaigner Prime Minister Narendra Modi who took up the central theme of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), amping up his attack on the opposition last month at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan. The polls will be fought under the leadership of Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari. The saffron camp, however, has entered the contest without a chief ministerial candidate. BJP feels that by announcing a chief ministerial candidate, the contest will be between Kejriwal vs that person, which might go against the BJP's intended goal. Therefore, the saffron party is looking to fight the state assembly polls on national issues and narratives, reports confirmed on Sunday.