New Delhi, Nov 09: With three weeks to go for the
Delhi Assembly polls, ruling Congress and opposition BJP are
locked in a keen electoral tussle in the capital where the
Grand Old Party is hoping for a historic hat-trick amidst
fears that Mayawati-led BSP may cut into its votes.
All eyes will be on BSP, which is contesting 70 seats in
the November 29 elections, after the party improved its tally
in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi from two to 17 last year
and with an increased vote share.
The decision of the UPA allies Samajwadi Party, Lok
Janshakti Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal to field candidates
in several seats in the capital has also given some heartburn
to the Congress which is fighting anti-incumbency.
It is widely believed that BSP, which won an impressive
17 seats in last year's MCD election and is now contesting all
70 Assembly seats, will hamper Congress' prospects in many
constituencies, eventually helping BJP to wrest the seats.
BJP leaders believe that if BSP could poll over 2,500
votes in a constituency, it could act to its advantage. Senior
leader Arun Jaitley, addressing a meeting of BJP candidates,
acknowledged this and said "if there is a spoiler in place for
your opponent, that would work for your advantage."
The saffron party is also banking on the votes polled in
favour of UPA allies like SP, LJP and RJD. SP is contesting 33
seats, LJP over 40 and RJD five.
However, Congress leaders dismiss these as "high hopes"
and claim that BSP is not going to make "much impact" as its
Dalit votebank is intact as the Mayawati-led party could not
make a dent in it in the MCD elections.
Though Congress leaders dismiss the candidates of the
allies and BSP as "non-players", a section in the party feels
that their presence would result in the division of secular
votes.
"We are fighting for ourselves and not on the basis of
who will win or who will lose. We are not concerned whether
BJP or Congress will gain or lose," Samajwadi Party Delhi
president Shyam Gambhir said when asked whether division of
secular votes would lead to BJP victory.
Samajwadi Party could wean away some Muslim votes from
Congress while RJD and LJP is believed to have some influence
among voters who belong to Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
All is not well in the city BJP unit also.
The candidate selection has evoked widespread protests
against leadership with ticket losers staging dharnas at the
party office and the residence of its Chief Ministerial
candidate V K Malhotra. Some protestors even heckled party
Delhi chief Harsh Vardhan.
Sharp differences among Malhotra, Harsh Vardhan and BJP
General Secretary Vijay Goel, who was in the race for Chief
Ministerial candidature, delayed the announcement of
candidates. Goel even walked out of a meeting of the Election
Management Committee.
The party also had not given authorisation letters to
some candidates, whose names were announced, for filing their
nominations after local leaders raised objections. One such
candidate is Kalpana Jain who was tipped to fight against
Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Harsh Vardhan admitted that there were protests in the
party but expressed hope that this would soon fizzle out and
everyone will "work together to oust Congress".
The candidate selection in Congress has also resulted in
revolt. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit seems to have had
her way in the candidate selection by managing to corner seats
for almost all her loyalists.
Union Minister Ajay Maken and DPCC chief Jai Prakash
Aggarwal could not make much leverage in the selection
process.
Congress has announced candidates for 48 seats, the BJP
has announced candidates for all the 70 seats.
The 77-year-old Dikshit is aiming for a record third
consecutive time banking on development and initiatives taken
to regularise unauthorised colonies while BJP is pinning hopes
on anti-incumbency and price rise.
The saffron party will also raise the recent terror
attacks in the city and safety and security.
Predicting a scrape through for the Congress, a pre-poll
survey by Star TV has claimed that Dikshit might return to
power for the third consecutive term in Delhi.
The survey claimed that ruling Congress, which has 47
MLAs in the present Assembly, will get 38 seats in the
70-member Assembly while opposition BJP will improve its tally
from 20 to 29 in this election.
However, according to the survey, BSP will not get any
seats despite an increase in its vote share from 5.76 per cent
in 2003 to 10 percent projected this time.
In what could be bad news for BJP's Chief Ministerial
candidate Malhotra, Dikshit is way ahead of the South Delhi MP
in popularity with 37 percent of the 6,248 respondents
favouring the Congress veteran. Malhotra polled 14 percent.
Bureau Report