Capital Comeback After 27 Years

BJP DEMOLISHES KEJRI-WALL IN DELHI | CONGRESS AGAIN SCORES ZERO

- VINAY KUMAR

Ending its political drought of 27 years, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday returned to power in Delhi, sweeping the Assembly polls and blowing away the Arvind Kejriwal-led ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which was eyeing a fourth-term.

In a closely fought election, the BJP bagged 48 out of 70 Assembly seats while the AAP could post victory on 22 seats. The Congress continued with its hat-trick of drawing a blank, according to results declared by the Election Commission of India.

Riding on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'AAP-da' (disaster) blitzkrieg, the BJP handed down an ignominious defeat to AAP's bigwigs, including former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his former deputy Manish Sisodia and former minister Satyender Jain. Only saving grace for the AAP was victory of chief minister Atishi from Kalkaji seat by a margin of 3,521 votes over BJP's former MP Ramesh Bidhuri.

Kejriwal's close aides Somnath Bharti from Malviya Nagar and Saurabh Bhardwaj from Greater Kailash were also defeated by the BJP candidates Satish Upadhyaya and Shikha Rai respectively. Kejriwal's defeat at the hands of BJP's Parvesh Verma in the New Delhi seat by a margin of 4,089 votes was a stunning blow. Sandeep Dikshit, former MP and son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, finished a distant third with 4,568 votes.