New Delhi: As the national Capital exercised its franchise on Saturday, it witnessed a bitterly contested fight between the three biggies — Aam Aadmi Party, BJP and Congress — with a majority of the Exit polls showing the incumbent AAP, led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal set for a hat-trick victory.
This election witnessed AAP pivoting its campaign around the five years of work done by the Kejriwal government in the field of utilities, health and education while BJP made the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests at Shaheen Bagh its main campaign issue. This election also highlighted BJP's call for "violence" against minority Muslims, invoking the spectre of arch-nemesis Pakistan to reverse course after five continuous losses in state elections over the past one year.
Two shootings at Jamia and Shaheen Bagh and provocative sloganeering by some BJP leaders, which earned the ire of the Election Commission, also marred the poll narrative.
With low voter turnout in the early hours sending shockwaves across party camps, this election witnessed bitter, often divisive, and vitriolic onslaught between the three majors, blasting each other not only during the fever-pitch election season but also on the poll day.
Exit polls on Saturday predicted a big victory for Kejriwal-led AAP with some indicating that it can even repeat if not cross its 2015 landslide when it had bagged 67 seats in the 70-member House.
The India Today-Axis poll forecast 59-68 seats for the AAP and 2-11 for the BJP, while the ABP-CVoter put the Delhi's ruling party's tally at anywhere between 49 and 63 and that of its main rival between five to 19.
Almost all Exit polls predicted little change in the fortunes of the Congress, which had ruled the city between 1998 and 2013 but drew a blank in the 2015 polls.
The Times Now-Ipsos Exit poll predicted that Kejriwal will retain power with the AAP winning 47 seats against 23 for the BJP.
The Republic-Jan ki Baat survey gave the AAP 48-61 seats and the BJP 9-21 seats.
The TV9 Bharatvarsh-Cicero predicted 52-64 seats for the AAP and 6-16 for the BJP.
An Exit poll put out by Neta-NewsX said the AAP may win 53-57 seats and the BJP 11-17.
The ABP's survey said the AAP's vote share maybe a whopping 50.4 per cent against the BJP's 36 per cent. The corresponding share for the two parties was 56 per cent and 35 per cent, according to the India Today-Axis poll.
If Exit polls prove correct, Kejriwal's party is set to lose around 11 seats since its 2015 sweep.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP, which has not governed the National Capital Territory of Delhi for 22 years, is expected to win approximately 14 seats.
Modi had won big in the national election last May but his authority seems to have been buffeted by anti-government protests in recent months. According to the Exit polls, his increasingly combative approach to Hindu nationalism will take a beating and AAP's triumph would show that Modi's recent doubling down on division hasn't paid off at all.
In 2015, AAP and BJP had won 67 and three seats respectively. Their corresponding vote share was 54.3 and 32.3 per cent. The AAP mostly avoided a fight with its rival over national issues and ran its campaign around its development planks and populist schemes like free power and bus ride for women.
The Congress, on the other hand, has run a lacklustre campaign and as depicted by the Exit polls, is expected to fare poorly.