Radio Brisvaani
The ruling state government of AAP faced one of its crushing defeats in the municipal elections in Delhi.
BJP had replaced all its sitting municipal councillors and put actor Manoj Tiwari, an outsider, as state unit head. BJP managed to signal a clean break from its 10-year-old legacy even as it rode on Modi’s huge post-UP popularity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was used as a trump card and it has paid rich dividends in the elections to the three municipal corporations.
BJP took 181 of the 270 seats, over two thirds, for which polling took place last Sunday.
“A party which won 67 assembly seats just two years back couldn’t win even 67 wards,” said Tiwari, rubbing it in.
For AAP, the outcome could not have been worse, coming as it did on the heels of its humiliating defeat in the Rajouri Garden bypoll and soon after its loss in Punjab and Goa. It was left vying with Congress for seats and vote share, doing marginally better than the latter. It got only 16 seats in south (BJP 70, Congress 12), 21 in north (BJP 64, Congress 15) and 11 in east (BJP 47, Congress 3). AAP had hoped it would be able to favourably contrast its performance in the state government with BJP’s in the MCD, but the strategy didn’t work.
Source: Times Now
