Published 08:00 IST, February 8th 2020
Delhi set to vote in 70-seat Assembly; AAP, BJP major contenders
The national capital will go to polls on Saturday to elect a new Assembly. The votes will be counted on Tuesday, February 8
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All 70-assembly seats will be polled in a single phase from 8 am on Saturday morning as Delhi goes to votes to elect its government for the next five years. The counting of votes will take place on Tuesday, February 11.
Delhi set to vote
The election is majorly a three-way tussle between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC). The AAP is currently in power after having won 67 out of the 70 seats in the 2015 elections, and the face of its campaign has been the convener of the party and the current Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. CM Kejriwal has led to a stable government over the past five years and has claimed to fulfill all its promises which it had mentioned in the manifesto released. The AAP-led Delhi government has improved the Delhi government schools - which has driven up the number of students enrolled and the performance of these students - opened up Mohalla clinics for better healthcare, and over the last one year, made travel for women free in Delhi metros and Delhi buses; it also offered water and electricity at nominal fares. CM Kejriwal has also started the process of installing free Wifis across multiple locations in the national capital.
However, there has been no solution to the issue of extremely high levels of air pollution that has plagued the city since every winter. A Supreme Court-mandated panel had declared a public health emergency in the Delhi-NCR region as the blanket of haze over Delhi thickened in November.
The BJP and the Congress have not announced a candidate for the post of the Chief Minister and also released the name of the candidate for the New Delhi constituency (CM Kejriwal's constituency) late. The BJP has named Yuva Morcha president Sunil Yadav whereas Congress has named Romesh Sabharwal for the seat.
The election takes place at the back of an extremely communal, hate drive campaign and various violent protests. The campaign saw multiple BJP leaders such as Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma coming under the ire of the Election Commission for their remarks during the campaign. The EC served three notices to the AAP as well, including CM Kejriwal for violating the code of conduct.
This is also the first election after the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was passed in the Parliament, which saw multiple protests across the country and especially in New Delhi.
Over 1.4 crore people are eligible to vote on Saturday with 13,571 polling stations that have been created at 2,688 locations across the city.
AAP is contesting in all 70 seats whereas the BJP is contesting in 67 seats, having allotted the remaining seats to its allies - two to JD-U and one to LJP. The Congress is contesting in 66 seats and has allotted four seats to the RJD.
Updated 08:00 IST, February 8th 2020