Delhi polls: Why changing sitting MLAs didn’t help AAP beat anti-incumbency

Of these 27 seats, three AAP MLAs left to join hands with the BJP — Kartar Singh Tanwar from Chhattarpur constituency, Kailash Gahlot from Najafgarh and Raaj Kumar Anand from Patel Nagar — long before the candidate announcement. While Tanwar won on a BJP ticket in Chhatarpur and Gahlot won from Bijwasan, Anand lost in Patel Nagar against the AAP candidate.

Eight sitting MLAs who were dropped jumped ship: Madan Lal from Kasturba Nagar, Naresh Yadav from Mehrauli, B S Joon from Bijwasan, Rohit Kumar Mehrauliya from Trilokpuri, Bhavna Gaur from Palam, Pawan Sharma from Adarsh Nagar, Rajesh Rishi from Janakpuri and Girish Soni from Madipur. The BJP won all.

It was only in seven of the 27 (26%) seats (where a sitting MLA was changed) that AAP managed a win. These were:

Matia Mahal won by Aaley Mohammed Iqbal, Chandni Chowk won by Punardeep Singh Sawhney, Seemapuri won by Veer Singh Dhingan, Kirari won by Anil Jha, Seelampur won by Chaudhary Zubair Ahmad, Patel Nagar won by Pravesh Ratn, and Deoli won by Prem Chauhan.

Four seats saw large victory margins–AAP won by over 42,000 votes in Matia Mahal and Seelampur; by over 36,000 in Deoli; and by over 21,000 votes in Kirari.

In the other three, the margins were 16,572 (Chandni Chowk), 10,368 (Seemapuri) and 4,049 (Patel Nagar) respectively.

Of the remaining 21 seats that AAP lost, four seats saw its candidates lose by over 25,000 votes. These were:

Najafgarh: In this seat, earlier represented by Gahlot, AAP’s Tarun Kumar lost by 29,009 votes to BJP’s Neelam Pahalwan.

Uttam Nagar: Former AAP MLA Naresh Balyan (who is in jail on organised crime charges) was replaced by his wife Posh Balyan; she lost by 29,740 votes to BJP’s Pawan Sharma.

Matiala: Sumesh Shokeen lost by 28,723 votes

Patparganj: Former deputy CM Manish Sisodia was replaced by Avadh Ojha in the seat. While Sisodia lost by a small margin of 675 from Jangpura, Ojha lost to BJP’s Ravinder Singh Negi by over 28,000 votes.

On the other hand, four AAP MLAs who won the three previous Assembly elections bagged a fourth victory: Jarnail Singh from Tilak Nagar, Sanjeev Jha from Burari, Vishesh Ravi from Karol Bagh and Som Dutt from Sadar Bazar.

Four MLAs who won this election had also won the previous two assembly elections: Amanatullah Khan from Okhla, Imran Hussain from Ballimaran, Gopal Rai from Babarpur, and Ajay Dutt from Ambedkar Nagar.

These “pro-incumbency” seats accounted for 36% of all seats won by the AAP.

Post-poll data released by Lokniti CSDS, an independent research institute, shows that more than half the respondents made a choice of whom to vote for long before the election campaign began — this could be a reason why changing sitting MLAs didn’t work for the AAP.

The data suggests that many of them voted for the BJP.

Only one-fourth of the respondents, according to the survey, decided who to vote for on the day of voting. These voters were closely split between the AAP and BJP, as per the survey.