AAP may return to power comfortably: Opinion Poll

Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP is predicted to return to power by bagging 54-60 out of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly elections, an opinion poll claimed on Monday that could put cold water on the expectations of the BJP that hope capture power despite its high-octane campaign.

BJP is expected to win only 10-14 seats, the poll by Times Now-IPSOS predicted. If this translates into actual result, AAP, which won 67 seats in 2015 polls, will be losing 7-13 seats while BJP, which gained three seats, will be winning 7-11 more seats.

Congress may get a maximum of two seats while none of the UPA allies (RJD) or NDA allies (JD-U and LJP) are unlikely to open their account in the February 8 polls.

The vote share prediction showed a complete reversal of the Lok Sabha figures with AAP predicted to get more than half of the votes in its favour.

AAP, which slipped to third position in Lok Sabha polls in May last year with 18.11% votes, is expected to garner 52% of the votes while BJP is likely to get 34% votes. BJP had won 56.56% votes in Delhi in the Parliamentary elections.

Congress, which relegated AAP to third position with 22.51%, may be doing very bad with the opinion poll predicting just 4% votes.

The opinion poll results came on a day Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first appearance in a campaign rally in the capital sought to suggest a "design" in the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in Shaheen Bagh and other places.

The opinion poll sought to provide a picture that the BJP's campaign riding on nationalism and polarisation has not yielded much result while AAP has attempted to restrict its campaign strictly to its achievements and work done in the past five year.

In the past fortnight, from Home Minister Amit Shah to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have been raising the issue of Shaheen Bagh. Adityanath has been accusing the Kejriwal government of "serving biriyani" to the protesters in Shaheen Bagh, which has caught the attention of the country.

Union Minister Anurag Thakur and West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma were removed from the list of BJP's star campaigners by the Election Commission for the controversial remarks besides banning them from campaigning for a certain period. Its Model Town candidate Kapil Mishra also faced a campaign ban for his comments against Shaheen Bagh protesters.

Vote Share
AAP 52%
BJP 34%
Congress 4%
Others 10%

Seat Projection
AAP 54-60
BJP 10-14
Congress 0-2
Others 0