BJP's sweep includes all seats in Delhi

The BJP on Friday won all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi while the AAP emerged as the second strongest political player in the city.

The Congress, which was the incumbent in all the parliamentary constituencies, lost all its seats and finished third in vote share.

The counting of votes started at 8am and within a couple of hours BJP candidates established early leads, sparking celebrations at the Delhi unit office. The BJP’s vote share was around 46 per cent, up from 33 per cent in the December Assembly polls, while the AAP clocked close to 33 per cent votes in most of the seven seats, up from 29.5 per cent in the Assembly polls.

The biggest loser was the Congress whose vote share dipped to an all-time low of nearly 15 per cent, down from 24.6 per cent in the Assembly election.

Delhi BJP chief and Chandni Chowk candidate Harsh Vardhan polled over 4.3 lakh votes and defeated his nearest rival Ashutosh of the AAP by more than 1.3 lakh votes. The BJP leader described the election as “game changing”.

Union minister and Chandni Chowk’s sitting MP Kapil Sibal of the Congress ended third. His cabinet colleague Krishna Tirath lost from North West Delhi. Other Congress heavy weights who lost included Ajay Maken, former Union minister, and Sandeep Dikshit, son of former Delhi chief minister.

The other victorious BJP candidates are:  Udit Raj (North West Delhi), Meenakshi Lekhi (New Delhi), Maheish Girri (East Delhi) and Manoj Tewari (North East Delhi).

According to the Election Commission, Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma won by over 2.6 lakh votes, Girri won by 1.9 lakh votes, Lekhi won by 1.6 lakh votes, Manoj Tiwari  won by 1.4 lakh votes, Udit Raj won by 1.06 lakh votes and Bidhuri recorded a victory margin of 1.07 lakh.

Former Delhi chief minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal expressed his disappointment to reporters: “We were not expecting such a poor response in Delhi.”

Party leader Yogendra Yadav said the AAP’s vote share in Delhi had gone up by 3.5 per cent, an indication of voters taking it seriously on the national platform.

Ajay Maken, Congress candidate from New Delhi constituency, conceded defeat.