MCD election results: With 4 wins, walled Delhi restores faith in Congress

Despite the change in parties, little has changed in the walled city over the last 10 years. With plans to redevelop the area stagnating, buildings stoop threateningly. Litter, traffic and pedestrians jostled for space as scenes of celebration unfolded in the area. Congress flags fluttered freely for the first time since the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

But as far as residents were concerned, the victory had little to do with faith in the Congress. “The Congress is better than AAP, in many ways. At least we won’t have very high hopes from them. They know the system and get the work done,” said Mohammad Abid, a resident of Jama Masjid.

The extent to which the performance in the area is a breather for the Congress is perhaps best underscored by the 2013 assembly elections, when the party that faced a rout elsewhere held on to seats of Ballimaran, Matia Mahal and Chandni Chowk.

In the 2015 polls, it was decimated everywhere. But things are different this time, explained Mohammad Iqbal, a second-hand film poster seller in Daryaganj. “Things have changed in the past two years. The Modi government was still a year old and we thought AAP could be an alternative for the Congress. We were tired of being treated as ‘vote banks’. But AAP failed us. The BJP has never done well here.”

Nowhere is the AAP’s loss and BJP’s gain more apparent than Daryaganj. The margin for the Congress’s victory here is a mere 59 and the surprise runner-up was the BJP.

While Congress hopes to build on their performance, residents in the area have only one question. “What is going to happen to the plans for MCD revival. No one has talked about that. The issues were demonetisation, corruption and Modi. No one has told us if anything is going to change,” said 74-year-old Sadiq Ali, a resident of Bazar Sita Ram ward.