New Delhi: The electoral campaign in Delhi came to an end on Thursday evening ahead of the Delhi Assembly polls on February 8, which is largely being seen as a three-way contest among ruling Aam Aadmi Party, Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress. For the BJP, the Shaheen Bagh anti-CAA protest was one of the major poll issues which they aggressively pursued during their whole campaign; whereas the AAP campaigned on the development work they have done in the last five years. Meanwhile, Congress made a last-ditch effort to consolidate votes.
In the 2013 Assembly elections, the BJP had won 31 out of 68 contested seats. Their vote share was around 33.98 per cent; whereas the Congress had won 8 out of 70 contested seats and received a vote share of 24.55 per cent. In the 2013 elections, the AAP won 28 seats out of 70 and got only 29.49 per cent vote share but in 2015, the AAP got 67 seats and secured a 54.34 per cent vote share whereas BJP won three seats with 32.1 per cent and Congress was not able to win any seat, with a 9.65 per cent vote share.
On the last day of the campaign, Union Home Minister Amit Shah took out three roadshows in Seelampur in North-East Delhi, and Hari Nagar and Madipur in West Delhi. AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal held a press conference where he said that no one in the BJP is worthy of becoming the Chief Minister of Delhi while the Congress party held numerous roadshows and rallies in a last-minute push. Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia took out a 'padayatra' in his Patparganj constituency in East Delhi.
At the start of the campaign, the BJP focused on the development work done by the Centre for the national Capital. Later they took a sharp turn and made Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests in Delhi, its main poll plank. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed two rallies while Home Minister Amit Shah addressed roadshows, public meetings. BJP president JP Nadda and Yogi Adityanath were also in full throttle over the Shaheen Bagh protest.
The BJP also roped in Chief Ministers of party-ruled states — Vijay Rupani (Gujarat), Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), N Biren Singh (Manipur), M L Khattar (Haryana) — to canvass for its candidates. Amid the whole campaign, controversies flared up when Union Minister Anurag Thakur, in a rally, incited a crowd in Delhi to complete his chant of "shoot the traitors". 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 campaigner's list. In fact, Verma was banned a second time by the EC over his remarks calling CM Kejriwal a 'terrorist'.
For AAP, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal led the campaign, focusing on roadshows and public meetings rather than rallies. The party also launched a door-to-door initiative, urging voters to back Kejriwal if they believed he is "a son of Delhi" and vote for the BJP if they feel he is a "terrorist". The AAP also held silent marches against the BJP in all 70 constituencies in Delhi for three days to protest against the "terrorist" remarks made by Verma and other BJP leaders.
Amid heated campaigns, the city witnessed three shootings-two outside Jamia Millia Islamia and one near the protest site at Shaheen Bagh. AAP and BJP have accused each other of playing "dirty politics" over the issue.
Star campaigners like Manmohan Singh, Ajay Maken, Shashi Tharoor, Sachin Pilot, Raj Babbar, Shatrughan Sinha were some A-listers joining the candidates in their roadshows and rallies for Congress. Meanwhile, top leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi also held public meetings in different constituencies two days before the election campaigning was supposed to end. The grand old party saw the candidates focusing on the door-to-door campaign this time. Meanwhile, numerous roadshows were held on the final day of the campaign.
On February 8, as many as 1,46,92,136 voters will decide the fate of candidates. Voting will be held across 13,751 polling booths including 3,141 critical and 144 vulnerable ones that will be set up at 2,689 locations. The results of the Delhi election 2020 will be announced on February 11. There are around 8,105,236 male and 6,680,277 female voters, 11,608 service voters, 869-third gender, 2,04,830 senior citizens who will vote on Saturday.