New Delhi: Ahead of the counting of votes for the MCD polls, the BJP on Tuesday exuded hope that the tide will turn in its favour even as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) claimed a "landslide" victory as predicted by exit polls.
A sombre mood prevailed at the Delhi BJP office ahead of the results, where the party leaders hoped that the exit polls will be proved wrong during the counting of votes.
Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta said that the party is going to fair much better then what the exit polls have predicted and we expect to comfortably cross the half way mark.
The exit polls on Monday showed that the AAP was going to sweep the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls by winning more than 150 of the 250 municipal wards with the BJP emerging a distant second.
"We have hope that the results will prove the exit polls wrong and the BJP will return back to rule the MCD. However, we will accept whatever the results are," said Delhi
BJP general secretary Dinesh Pratap Singh.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said it would be too early to give in to the survey predictions.
"Wait till tomorrow. I am very hopeful that our results will be far better," he said.
In case it loses the MCD polls, the BJP's era of 15 years rule at the civic body will come to an end. The defeat will also dent party's expectations to weaken the Kejriwal-led AAP's political dominance in Delhi and further diminish its chances in the 2025 assembly polls.
A defeat, which seems unlikely in the light of exit poll predictions, will, however, jolt the AAP that registered massive victories in Delhi assembly polls in 2015 and 2020.
The third main contender in the fray, the Congress, too hoped to prove the exit polls wrong on Wednesday.
"The exit poll surveys will be proven wrong very soon. Our party has done the groundwork and according to the internal survey of the party, the Congress is winning 60-70 seats," Delhi Congress president Anil Chaudhary said.
The MCD exit polls have foretold the Congress's victory in less than 10 wards.
Delhi Congress' media department coordinator Anil Bhardwaj asserted that the party will do "much better" than its performance in the previous polls. "Our vote share will be better than the previous elections. The Party's internal survey is good but doesn't match with the exit poll predictions,"
he said. The Congress that ruled Delhi under the chief ministership of Sheila Dikshit for 15 years has seen its political space being occupied by the AAP after 2013. The party failed to win even a single seat in Delhi in two Lok Sabha and Assembly elections each, between 2014 to 2020.
The BJP trounced both the AAP and the Congress by winning 181 of 272 wards of the three municipal corporations in the 2017 elections. The AAP in its civic polls debut won 48 and the Congress 30 wards.
The results will be announced after counting of polled votes on all the 250 municipal wards on Wednesday. Voting for MCD elections was held on Sunday.