Congress & BJP saw political dynasts fail; AAP strikes gold
New Delhi: The Congress and the BJP which placed their bets on the kin of political veterans ended up tasting defeat in the Delhi Assembly elections, even as those with a political legacy who joined the AAP just ahead of the polls, went on to trounce their rivals by considerable margins.
Congress' candidate from Kalkaji, Shivani Chopra, daughter of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief Subhash Chopra, polled a little over four per cent votes from the constituency and ended up behind AAP's winning candidate Atishi and BJP's Dharambir Singh. Shivani also ended up losing her security deposit.
Interestingly, Shivani's father has been elected thrice as MLA from the constituency.
Former Delhi Speaker Yoganand Shastri's daughter Priyanka Singh was fielded by the grand old party from the R K Puram seat, but she only polled 3,237 votes. The winning candidate from AAP Pramila Tokas polled 47,208 votes from the constituency.
Singh, 41, is the vice-president of the Delhi Mahila Congress and has been politically active since 2008.
Her father served as Delhi minister for food and civil supplies from 1998 to 2003, minister for health and social welfare from 2003 to 2008 and Delhi Assembly speaker from 2008 to 2013.
Shastri represented the Mehrauli seat for the first two terms and the Malviya Nagar constituency in his third term.
Poonam Azad, wife of Kirti Azad, who headed the campaign committee of Delhi Congress, was the candidate for the Sangam Vihar seat, but her fate in the polls was worse than her Congress counterparts.
She finished the poll race in the fourth position from the Sangam Vihar constituency, even behind the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate. She bagged a meagre 2.23 per cent of the total votes polled.
AAP's Dinesh Mohaniya retained the seat by securing over 75 per cent of the votes polled.
Poonam, 53, had contested against then Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit in the 2003 assembly polls on a BJP ticket. She snapped her ties with the BJP in November 2016 after serving the party for more than 20 years, alleging that she had been sidelined. Poonam then joined the AAP, but just five months later, in April 2017, she switched to the Congress.
Her father-in-law Bhagwat Jha Azad, who served as Bihar chief minister in 1988-89, also belonged to the Congress.
Her husband and former MP from Bihar's Darbhanga, Kirti Azad, was suspended by the BJP in December 2015 after he alleged irregularities in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) when it was headed by former Union finance minister Arun Jaitley.
Former Model Town MLA Kunwar Karan Singh's daughter Akanksha Ola was in the fray from Model Town, but faced defeat.
Nangloi Jat MLA Birender Singh's son Mandeep Singh, former Ambedkar Nagar MLA Chaudhary Prem Singh's son Yaduraj Chaudhary and former Mustafabad MLA Hasan Ahmed's son Ali Mehendi also met a similar fate.
The BJP had also fielded candidates related to politicians this assembly election.
Rajiv Babbar, son of former three-time MLA O P Babbar, was fielded by the saffron party from Tilak Nagar, but ended up losing to AAP's Jarnail Singh for the third time by a margin of over 28,000 votes. The senior Babbar had held the Tilak Nagar seat in 1993, 2003 and 2008.
