Delhi polls: Will Sheila bat for the third time?

Over 1.07 crore voters, including 4.28 lakh youth, will be eligible to chose their lawmakers from 863 candidates in the polls for which elaborate security has been put in place. The stakes in this election are high for Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister for the past ten years, who faces voters on development agenda while BJP led by its Chief Ministerial candidate V K Malhotra is hoping to cash in on anti-incumbency and BSP’s ‘spoiler effect’ on the Congress.

Though Congress has not declared its Chief Ministerial candidate, the party has given clear indication that if voted to power, Dikshit will have a “third innings”. She had a major say in ticket distribution which saw Delhi stalwarts like Union Minister Ajay Maken and Sajjan Kumar MP being sidelined.

Engaged in a keen electoral tussle, both Congress and BJP are eagerly waiting to see how much ice Mayawati-led BSP can cut even as political pundits feel that the “Elephant’s March” could harm the ruling party’s fortunes in many seats. The last week of campaigning saw parties fielding top leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, L K Advani, Narendra Modi and Mayawati to go on an offensive on each other.

While Congress harped on development it brought to the city, BJP picked holes in the ruling party’s claims asking voters to give “some rest” to the grand old party while raising the decibel levels on terrorism.

BJP’s new development mascot Modi did a whirlwind tour in the city addressing about ten election meetings raising Congress’ alleged “failure” in tackling terrorism and price rise besides questioning the rationale for going for “killer” projects like Bus Rapid Transit Corridor.

Congress tried to counter the BJP offensive with Rahul Gandhi, who made his debut in election campaigning in Delhi, claiming that the saffron party was raising the bogey of terrorism as they have “no dreams to offer” on development.

On the other hand, BSP focussed its campaign on winning over minorities and Dalits in the capital besides assuring upper caste voters that it was not against them by offering quota for poor among them.

Charges were also traded at each other on a number of local issues like regularisation of unauthorised colonies, sealing and demolitions, BRT corridor, demand for statehood for Delhi and privatisation of power distribution.

Besides these, the encounter at Jamia Nagar in south Delhi, in which two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists were killed, gave Congress’ four-month-old ally Samajwadi Party an opportunity to virtually paint the ruling party in an anti-minority light.

The election season in the capital began with intense lobbying for party nominations, which turned almost violent with supporters of some aspirants heckling BJP Delhi chief Harsh Vardhan and damaging the car of his Congress counterpart Jai Prakash Aggarwal.

Both Congress and BJP burnt midnight oil to finalise their list while BSP went ahead with changing candidates several times after jumping the bandwagon in early April. BJP fielded all its 19 sitting MLAs while Congress dropped three of its 47 legislators from the fray.

BJP chose “energetic” Saket MLA Vijay Jolly to take on Dikshit in New Delhi constituency while Congress preferred a lightweight Jitender Kochar, former Leader of House of MCD, to fight Malhotra in Greater Kailash seat.

Though there were no surprises in the candidates list, Congress fielded a retired IPS officer Amod Kanth from Sangam Vihar to cash in on migrant voters.

While BJP did not chose any councillors despite their keenness to fight the elections, Congress gave a chance to about half-a-dozen corporators to test waters.

The intense campaigning was marked by hundreds of election rallies, street meetings and door-to-door canvassing by over 800 candidates for 70-member assembly.

The terror attacks may affect the turnout of the voters in the capital on Saturday even as leaders of political parties have appealed to the electorates not to be cowed down by any threats and exercise their franchise without any fear.

However, all eyes are on BSP, which is contesting in all the 70 seats riding on its social engineering formula, after the party improved its tally in the MCD from two to 17 last year.

The BSP has managed to rope in some Congress rebels to support it, including former MLA Netaji Ram Singh who is contesting from Badarpur. BJP leaders believe that if BSP could poll over 2,500 votes in a constituency, it could act to its advantage.

Predicting a scrape through for the Congress, a pre-poll survey by a Hindi news channel has claimed that Dikshit might return to power for the third consecutive term in Delhi.

The survey claimed that ruling Congress, which has 47 MLAs in the present Assembly, will get 39 seats in the 70-member Assembly while opposition BJP will improve its tally from 20 to 27 in this election.