New Delhi, Feb 8 (UNI) Ending a 27-year wait, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday returned to power in Delhi with a massive two-thirds majority, bringing the curtain down on the Aam Aadmi Party's 10-year rule.
With one result yet to come in the 70-member Assembly, which had gone to the hustings on February 5, the BJP has already picked up 47 seats - touching a two-thirds majority. The AAP, on a dismal day when many of its stalwarts including party National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal lost out to less fancied BJP rivals, has won 22 seats.
The BJP is ahead in the remaining seat.
The Congress was completely routed yet again, failing to open their account for the third time in a row in the Delhi Assembly. Most of its candidates lost their security deposit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had led the BJP's campaign, hailed the party's landslide victory saying "Development wins and good governance triumphs".
He emphasised, "We will leave no stone unturned for the all-round development of Delhi".
On the other hand, Kejriwal in a video message conceded defeat and vowed to play the role of a constructive opposition.
The former Chief Minister said, "I humbly accept the mandate of the people and also congratulate the BJP for their victory. I hope the BJP will fulfill all the promises they have made for which the people of Delhi have voted them".
The BJP previously won the Delhi Assembly polls in 1993 but lost power to the Congress in 1998, and since then has been in the opposition in the prestigious Union Territory, which comprises the National Capital Region.
In today's vote count, BJP's Parvesh Verma turned out to be the giant slayer by defeating former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by a margin of over 4,000 votes from the New Delhi Assembly constituency.
A mong other AAP bigshots, former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia lost to Tarvinder Singh Marwah of the BJP by a margin of over 600 votes, while incumbent Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj was humbled by BJP's Shikha Roy with a 3188-vote margin.
The silver lining for AAP was the victories of Delhi Chief Minister Atishi and Minister Gopal Rai.
After a snake and ladder game In Kalkaji, Atishi defeated her nearest rival BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri with a margin of 3521 and Gopal Rai won the Babarpur seat by over 18994 votes.
Prominent BJP candidates who won their seats included Kapil Mishra from Karawal Nagar, Manjinder Singh Sirsa from Rajouri Garden, Mohan Singh Bisht from Mustafabad.
Kailash Gahlot, who joined BJP from AAP ahead of the election, won the Bijwasan seat, while Satish Upadhyay won from Malviya Nagar by upsetting another prominent AAP leader and former Delhi Minister Somnath Bharti.
Other notable BJP victors were Raj Kumar Chauhan from Mangol Puri, Vijender Gupta from Rohini, Karnail Singh from Shakur Basti, Ravinder Singh Negi from Patparganj and former Congressman Arvinder Singh Lovely from Gandhi Nagar.
The AAP had created a sensation by coming to power in Delhi for 49 days with outside support of the Congress in 2013 only a year after the party was founded. It had been ruling the Union Territory at a stretch since 2015.
With regards to vote share, BJP has so far got 45.56 percent votes while AAP has secured 43.57 vote share. The Congress has garnered 6.34 percent votes.
In the 2020 elections, the AAP had retained power by winning 62 seats, while the BJP got the remaining eight. UNI TEAM SSP