The Bharatiya Janata Party improved its vote share in the Delhi Assembly elections on Tuesday but failed to convert it into seats as the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party handed it a drubbing. The saffron party won 38.51% of the votes cast. This was higher than the 32.3% vote share for the BJP in the 2015 elections.
However, the BJP won only eight out of 70 seats – an improvement on its 2015 tally of three.
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party saw a slight dip in its vote share. It had won 53.57% of the votes counted. In the last Assembly elections, it had bagged 54.5% of the votes.
The elections marked the continuing decline of the Congress in the national Capital, where it was in power from 1998 to 2013. The party had won 0.02% of the votes, down from the paltry 9% it had secured in 2015. In the 2008 elections, the Congress had a vote share of 40%, which was almost reduced by almost half when the AAP came along in 2013.
The Congress was not in second place in any of the 70 seats in the city, and might forfeit its deposit nearly everywhere. According to the Election Commission, a candidate has to forfeit his or her security deposit if they receive fewer than one-sixth of the total votes polled – or less than 16.66% of the votes.
On Saturday, voter turnout in the elections decreased from a record 67.47% in 2015 to 62.59%.
Also read:
Kejriwal’s huge win, BJP chastened, Congress duck: Takeaways from AAP’s victory in Delhi election
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