Despite focussing on Purvanchali-dominated during campaigning for the Delhi Assembly polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and BJP shared the honours in the seats dominated by the community, winning five seats each even as Bihar-based NDA allies, the JD(U) and LJP (RV) tasted defeats in the seats they contested. Purvanchalis, who trace their origins to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and relocated to the capital in search of jobs, are seen to be a dominant force in constituencies like Sangam Vihar, Deoli, Ambedkar Nagar, New Delhi, Burari, Kirari, Babarpur, Malviya Nagar, Karawal Nagar, Laxmi Nagar but are seen to have a presence in almost all the 70 constituencies of Delhi. The BJP, which had won Karawal Nagar and Laxmi Nagar in 2020, retained the two seats while wresting Malviya Nagar, New Delhi and Sangam Vihar from the AAP, which saw its tally in the region fall from eight in 2020 to five. The biggest setbacks for the AAP came from the New Delhi and Malviya Nagar seats. In New Delhi, AAP national convenor and former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal lost to the BJP’s Parvesh Verma by over 4,000 votes while in Malviya Nagar, former Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay defeated ex-minister Somnath Bharti by a narrow margin of 2,131 votes. Another low-margin seat was Sangam Vihar, where AAP sitting MLA Dinesh Mohaniya lost out to the BJP’s Chandan Kumar Choudhary by a slender margin of 344 votes. The AAP defeated the BJP in Ambedkar Nagar, Kirari and Babarpur while it trumped NDA allies, the JD(U) and LJP(RV) in Burari and Deoli, respectively. In the run-up to the polls, the BJP had claimed to have nominated over half-a-dozen Purvanchalis while sources in the AAP said it had fielded over 10 candidates. Both parties had also made several promises to the community while accusing each other of mistreating the community. The BJP also deployed its leaders from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to campaign in the capital in a bid to woo the community. During campaigning, a large section of Purvanchali voters had indicated their support to the NDA claiming a “double-engine government” just like in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar would help develop basic infrastructure in their constituencies.
