High-pitched MCD bypoll campaign comes to end: BJP relies on 9 months of governance, AAP picks grassroot issues

In South Delhi’s GK, one of the city’s most visible and politically symbolic wards, the air was thick with colour as both parties staged roadshows on the final day of campaigning.

BJP supporters on bikes circled the M Block market, where some shopkeepers stepped out to shower flower petals on the cavalcade. Across the road, AAP’s e-rickshaws and motorcycles moved steadily, scarves tied to poles and volunteers flashing the victory sign amid appeals to residents to press ballot number 2 for the party.

Not too far, in Zamrudpur, the Gujjar-dominated pocket considered the BJP’s vote bank, two rallies briefly came face-to-face, prompting BJP workers to shout, “Sabhi karyakarta saamne aa jayein… pata chalna chahiye ki BJP waale aaye hain.”

Two Delhi Police constables followed on a motorbike, watching as both groups squeezed past each other in the narrow lane.

The GK ward, vacated after BJP’s Shikha Rai was elected as an MLA, is witnessing a tight contest. Its outcome is particularly important for the AAP where the party has fielded its student wing president, Eeshna Gupta, as part of Delhi AAP unit Saurabh Bharadwaj’s attempt to rebuild the party’s influence in the constituency where he once held sway before losing the Assembly seat to Rai earlier this year by just 3,188 votes. In that election, the Congress’s vote was larger than the victory margin.

The BJP, meanwhile, is framing the ward as a test of BJP’s “clean image” and of what party leaders, in their speeches, have been describing as a decisive governance by the Delhi government over the past few months.

“Greater Kailash has traditionally been a BJP supporting area,” New Delhi MP Bansuri Swaraj told voters during her roadshow, “But this time, both opposition parties — AAP and Congress — have fielded money-power candidates to spoil the environment. They will not succeed.”

Residents are more ambivalent. “I have never voted in the MCD election myself, but I can tell you for a fact that this area generally votes for stability, whoever is in power and can get the work done,” said Anita Sehgal, 54, a resident of GK-I.

The BJP’s broader campaign speeches have leaned heavily on its governance record from last nine months — sewer cleaning, electricity and water supply during the summer, Chhath arrangements, improving DTC services, and what leaders have been describing as evidence of the “the public mood is clearly shifting in favour of the BJP” during their campaign visits. The party has also referred to former CM and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s absence from the bypoll campaign as a “silent pre-acceptance of defeat”.

Even as AAP has been raising burning issues such as the pollution crisis, demolitions, school fee hikes, power cuts, within the AAP, the mood has been complicated by internal ruptures. Hours after the party announced its candidates on November 9, a veteran Old Delhi leader, Shoaib Iqbal resigned, accusing the party of failing to “live up to the expectations of the people of Delhi.”

His departure had followed a tussle over the Chandni Mahal ticket, after Iqbal allegedly declared his brother-in-law as the candidate “without consultation”. The AAP said that it was against “parachute candidates”. The father–son duo have since been campaigning for their relatives Mohammad Imran, a candidate from the All India Forward Bloc.

Beyond GK and Chandni Mahal, Vinod Nagar, Sangam Vihar-A and Dwarka-B are the wards that are traditionally BJP strongholds;

Mundka was won by AAP in 2017 but by BJP-backed independent Gajendra Drall in 2022, is being contested by AAP’s former MCD LoP Anil Lakra; Dichaon Kalan, a ward neither loyal to AAP or BJP, has twice elected Neelam Pahalwan. who is now a BJP MLA from Najafgarh; Naraina ward is this bypoll’s most competitive seat with seven candidates where the BJP has been betting on its candidate’s clean, educated profile; Dakshinpuri, and Chandni Chowk are meanwhile the strongholds of the AAP.

The BJP has turned a promise of “triple-engine” governance into an advantage. On the last day of campaigning too, CM Rekha Gupta visited three roadshows and reminded residents that the bypoll “is not going to change the composition of the MCD.”

She told the residents, “To make this development journey more effective, faster and broader in scope, it is essential to ensure the victory of the BJP candidates.”