AAP celebrates as BJP, Cong say Exit polls will be proven 'wrong'
New Delhi: As voting for the Delhi assembly elections on Saturday ended and all exit polls predicted more than just a comfortable majority for the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, setting it up to form the government once again, all three major political parties reacted to these predictions — some with poise and grace while others with booming overconfidence.
After the first of the exit polls started showing their predictions in favour of the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari hot out at all pollsters on Twitter, saying that these exit polls would soon be proven wrong on Result Day. He tweeted in Hindi, "All these exit polls will fail ... Save this tweet if you want... BJP will form government by taking 48 seats in Delhi ... Please do not find an excuse to blame EVMs now ..."
Meanwhile, senior AAP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia took to the micro-blogging website and thanked all party supporters and volunteers for a successful campaign. Sisodia also tweeted in Hindi, declaring that his party will be winning by a "huge margin". His tweet read, "Voting ended! Hearty congratulations to all the activists! They all worked from Alsubah till late at night, and some worked 24 hours in the last days. How selfless and strong is the relationship of all of us, this election is the proof of this We are winning by a huge margin. Today salute the hard work of all colleagues."
On the other hand, the Indian National Congress, which had been in power in Delhi for 15 years under the leadership of Sheila Dikshit, responded, but only through a comment made by current state party chief Subhash Chopra, who also said that the results on February 11 would surprise everyone by giving a mandate to his party. Speaking to reporters, Chopra said, "All exit polls are going to fail. BJP will not get even 20 seats & Kejriwal is not going to form govt in Delhi. I'm hoping
Congress is going to do much better than what exit polls are showing. Let us wait till the results are out."
The grand old party has been largely absent from the extremely polarising campaign in Delhi. With senior leaders like Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi only joining the campaign trail in the last few days of the campaign period, the party was also struggling with infighting, reportedly among Chopra,
who had fielded his daughter Shivani Chopra from Kalkaji and Kirti Azad, whose wife Poonam Azad contested from Sangam Vihar assembly segment.
The BJP had capitalised on the atmosphere of protests in the Capital against the Central government's CAA and NRC designs and senior saffron leaders were pulled up by the poll regulatory authority often for violating multiple provisions of the Model Code of
Conduct. In stark contrast, the AAP had made education, electricity and water their main poll plank and chosen to stay away from the Shaheen Bagh and anti-CAA poll rhetoric in the run-up to election day.
