Delhi municipal corporation bypolls: AAP wins in four out of five wards, Congress bags one, BJP draws a blank

Bypolls to five municipal wards in the national capital gave a boost to the AAP on Wednesday as it bagged four and Congress one while leaving the BJP red-faced with just one year to go for the civic body elections.

Adding more trouble, BJP lost its sitting seat Shalimar Bagh North, a party stronghold, to AAP.

Congress wrested one seat from AAP to instil some confidence in the party, which had decimated to the third in the previous civic body polls and the Assembly elections last year.

AAP candidates won from Kalyanpuri, Rohin-C, Trilokpuri and Shalimar Bagh wards while Congress won Chauhan Bangar ward.

Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, "The people of Delhi once again voted for those who work. Congratulations to all. The public has been troubled by the 15-year BJP misrule in the MCD. People are now desperate that they want AAP to head Delhi municipalities too."

Also read: Local body poll: BJP routs Congress in rural Gujarat

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia congratulated the party workers for the victory and said that people were fed up with the BJP and would bring in Kejriwal's politics of honesty and work in the municipal polls next year.

The bypoll victories also came against the backdrop of AAP's impressive performance in Gujarat civic body elections recently. It became the main opposition in Surat municipality.

In the 2017 polls, the BJP had retained all three municipal corporations in Delhi with the AAP finishing a distant second.

The bypoll results showed that the BJP would have to pull its strings together fast as the capital will witness the civic body elections early next year.

AAP candidate Dhirender Kumar won the Kalyanpuri ward by 7,043 votes while AAP's Vijay Kumar defeated BJP's Om Prakash by 4,986 votes in Trilokpuri. AAP's Sunita Mishra defeated BJP's Surbhi in Shalimar Bagh ward by 2,705 votes. AAP's Ram Chander defeated BJP's Rakesh Goyal by 2,985 votes in Rohini C ward.

Congress' Chaudhary Zubair Ahmad defeated AAP's Mohammad Ishraq Khan by 10,642 votes in Chauhan Bangar ward.