Big day for Big 3
New Delhi: With Delhi all set to exercise their franchise on Saturday, over one crore voters will decide the fate of 672 candidates contesting from 70 constituencies. The national Capital has seen a high decibel campaign wherein the political parties raised issues ranging from development to nationalism. While the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) pinned its campaign on the development work done in the last five years, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) campaigned aggressively in the Union Territory raising issues surrounding nationalism as a major poll plank. For Congress, it's all about hoping to make a comeback.
Adequate arrangements have been made by the Delhi Police and around 40,000 security personnel, 19,000 Home Guards and 190 companies of Central Armed Police Forces have been deployed to ensure smooth conduct of the Assembly elections.
Sharat Kumar Sinha, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Election Cell), said since the enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct, 99,210 litres of illicit liquor, with a market value of Rs 2.72 crore and 774.1 kg drugs worth Rs 4.91 crore have already been seized as part of special drives.
A special focus has been given on the security arrangements in Shaheen Bagh area. The Election Commission has put all five polling stations in the region under the "critical" category.
Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ranbir Singh said all EVMs have been tested and they are "foolproof and non-tamperable".
Security personnel kept guard at strong rooms storing EVMs. Election staff during the day carried EVMs and other polling material to booths under tight supervision in all constituencies.
According to the Election Commission, as many as 1,47,86,382 people are eligible to vote in the Delhi polls and 2,32,815 are in the age group of 18-19 years. Voters in various categories include males (81,05,236), females (66,80,277), service voters (11,608), third gender voters (869) and senior citizens (aged 80 and above) voters (2,04,830). The highest number of voters is in Matiala (4,23,682) whereas the lowest is in Chandni Chowk (1,25,684).
The bitterly fought campaign that lasted for over three weeks ended at 6 pm on Thursday. The AAP, during their campaign, focused on their achievements in the last five years. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal led the campaign and focused on roadshows and public meetings rather than rallies.
Meanwhile, BJP began their election campaign with the development work done by the Central government but eventually changed track and initiated aggressive nationalism propaganda which also invited a lot of controversies.
Union Minister Anurag Thakur incited a crowd in Delhi to complete his chant 'shoot the traitors' while West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma also made a controversial statement on Shaheen Bagh.
Both Thakur and Verma were banned from campaigning for 72 and 96 hours respectively and also dropped from the party's star campaigners' list. In fact, Verma was banned a second time by the EC over his remarks about calling Kejriwal a "terrorist".
Congress made a last-minute push for votes in the election with Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Ajay Maken, Shashi Tharoor, Sachin Pilot, Raj Babbar and Shatrughan Sinha being their star campaigners.
