Delhi Goes to Polls Saturday Feb 07,2015

 

 
 
 

Polling stations have opened in Delhi Assembly Elections at 8 am at over 12,000 polling stations, of which which 714 have been identified as "critical" and 191 "highly critical".

A total of over 1.33 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. A total of 673 candidates are in the fray in the contest.'ndtvrelcontent'></div>

Over 64,000 police personnel had been deployed across the city to ensure free and fair polls.

The BJP, which has remained out of power in Delhi for the last 16 years, brought in former team Anna member, Kiran Bedi into the party and made her its chief ministerial candidate 

The Indian National Congress(INC), which had ruled Delhi for 15 years till December, 2013 has been projected way behind the AAP and the BJP in pre-poll surveys

In morning newspapers, a full page BJP ad demonstrated how to vote for its symbol, the lotus, provoking early morning complaints from chief rival in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Saturday morning, "As Delhi votes today, urging voters to go out & vote in large numbers. I particularly call upon my young friends to vote in record numbers."

The BJP party president Amit Shah, who tweeted, "The future of Delhi lies in your finger, please participate in large numbers & vote. #DelhiVotes,"

AAP Chief Minister Candidate Arind Kejriwal is contesting from New Delhi Constituency
BJP Chief Minister Candidate Kiran Bedi is contesting from Krishna Nagar Constituency and
Congress Party's Ajay Maken  is contesting from Sadar Constituency

Congress vote share will decide Delhi polls outcome

In the last nine Assembly elections that have been held in the Capital since 1951, the Congress’ average vote share has been 42.9 per cent. 

Minorities, Dalits and those living in jhuggis have traditionally been strong supporters of the Congress. 

AAP has been able to snatch most of Congress’ traditional vote share in the jhuggis with a whopping 53% of the jhuggi voters indicating that they would vote this time for AAP. 

47% of the Dalits respondents said they would pick the jhadoo while 49% of the Muslims too said they would vote for AAP. 

All these figures are a substantial jump over the tracker figures from December and January which shows that as the campaign progressed and word spread that the Congress was being edged out of the race, more and more of the traditional Congress voter started switching to AAP

In December 2013 the Congress had garnered almost onefourth (24.55%) of the total votes cast in Delhi and picked up eight seats. 

However, five months later during the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress’ vote share crashed by almost 10% coming down to 15%. 

Delhi records highest voters' turnout, over 66 %t vote registered

 

An estimated 67 % turnout was recorded on Saturday in the crucial Delhi assembly polls where BJP and AAP were locked in a battle, outcome of which may have ramifications on the national political landscape.
"Around 67 % polling was recorded. However, we are still yet to get the final figure as voting continued beyond scheduled deadline of 6 PM," Delhi's Chief Electoral Officer Chandra Bhushan Kumar said.

Delhi saw a voter turnout of 67.14 % on Saturday and 673 candidates are in fray. Polling had taken place at 12,177 polling stations, of which 714 were identified as "critical". Of these, 191 were "highly critical"

There are 63 contesting women candidates in this election as against 71 in 2013.  The number of candidates from recognised national and state parties is 296 while 183 candidates belong to registered parties and there are 194 Independent nominees.



The results for the 70-member state assembly are due on Tuesday Feb 10,2015