NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Meenakshi Lekhi retained the New Delhi Lok Sabha by defeating Congress' Ajay Maken and AAP's Brijesh Goyal. This triangular fight for the pivotal New Delhi seat is as tight as it can get. All three of the leaders had an edge over the other two in different fronts.
Lekhi got nearly 54 per cent of the vote, Maken got 26 per cent vote and Goyal got around 16 per cent vote. Lekhi got more than 5 lakh vote whereas Maken got nearly 2 lakh vote.
Congress' Ajay Maken entered the fight with a lot of experience. Maken had won twice from the same seat - in 2004 and in 2009. In 2004, Maken defeated BJP leader Jagmohan and in 2009 he defeated Vijay Goel. Maken had also served as the President of the Delhi Congress. Maken had always been in favour of an AAP-Cong alliance in Delhi.
Lekhi who had been banking on her achievements and PM Modi's leadership to sail through in the Lok Sabha Elections 2019 also had a lot of challenges to face.
For starters, Lekhi's biggest challenge was the traders affected by sealing of commercial establishments in Delhi. Then there were also the bureaucrats who were unhappy with the Seventh Pay Commission anomalies. Maken did not let this opportunity go and made Delhi sealing one of his top poll pitches. He criticised the AAP government in the capital and the BJP government in the Centre for failing to stop the sealing.