After Delhi polls victory, AAP to focus on next MCD elections: Sources

After scripting a scintillating win in the just-concluded Delhi polls, the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP is now likely to focus on the next municipal elections, sources said on Wednesday.

In a near-repeat performance of 2015, the Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday retained power with a stunning victory, winning 62 of the 70 assembly seats and leaving the BJP with just eight seats. The AAP had bagged 67 seats in 2015.

"As the party has registered a landslide victory in the assembly elections, it will now focus on the next MCD polls," a source said. "The AAP will further strengthen organisational structure in view of the next civic polls," he said. In its manifesto, the AAP had promised to give Rs one crore to the kin of sanitation workers who die while performing duty. This move will garner support of the workers of the corporations, the sources said.

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The BJP, which swept the 2017 civic polls in Delhi, had betted big on its municipal leaders to shore up the party's fortune for the February 8 polls. Four former mayors, as many deputy mayors and other municipal leaders, serving and former councillors of the three BJP-led civic bodies (NDMC, SDMC and EDMC), had fought the polls, numbering about 20.

However, the saffron party received a major drubbing at the hands of the AAP and could get eight seats, while the Congress again drew a blank as in the 2015 Delhi polls. According to the final figures released by the Election Commission, the AAP's vote share was 53.57 percent. The BJP got 38.51 percent of the total votes. The Congress performed very poorly with 4.26 percent vote share. The AAP's stupendous victory comes nearly eight months after it suffered a severe drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls in which the party drew a blank, while the BJP won all the seven seats.

The erstwhile unified MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) was trifurcated into the NDMC, SDMC and the EDMC in 2012. The BJP has been ruling the civic bodies for over a decade now. Incidentally, the ruling BJP had not fielded its sitting councillors in the MCD elections in 2017 and brought in fresh faces, including four Muslim candidates.

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There are a total of 272 wards in the three municipal corporations in the city, including 104 each in South and North Delhi municipal corporations, and 64 in the East Delhi municipal corporation. In the 2017 civic polls, the BJP had scored a hat-trick, comfortably retaining control of the three municipal corporations, dealing a severe blow to the Aam Aadmi Party and dashing the Congress' hope of a revival.

Winning 181 out of 270 wards where elections were held, the saffron party had added muscle to its decade-long domination of the corporations, effortlessly bucking anti-incumbency by riding on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP's corporation-wise tally was: SDMC - 70, NDMC - 64 and EDMC - 47 as against AAP's tally of 16, 21 and 11, respectively. The Congress had finished last with 12, 15 and three wards.

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