The campaigning for MCD bypolls picked up pace on Friday with the three political parties setting out their last bid to win over the voters as the 13 MCD wards go to polls on Sunday. While Congress roped in national leaders and celebrities to regain its political ground, BJP MPs are campaigning in their wards to bag the largest vote share with the debutant AAP following the agenda of door-to-door campaigning. The bypolls, also dubbed as the semi-finals of the 2017 elections, are likely to have a bearing on the Corporations’ leadership then.
Riding on the rousing mandate given to it in the 2015 Assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party is now eyeing for maximum number of seats in the bypolls. Claiming to snatch away maximum seats in their maiden fight, senior leaders and ministers of the Delhi government including Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, Kapil Mishra and Kumar Vishwas attended public meetings in the wards. “As we have been working on a corruption-free Delhi, we have been getting overwhelming support from people. We are hopeful to will all the 13 seats and to create another record after the Delhi Assembly polls,” said Deepak Bajpai, spokesperson of the party.
AAP was the first to release the list of its candidates for all the 13 wards and has been working on door-to-door campaigning besides taking it on social media platforms as well. Of the 13 wards where by-elections will be held, seven fall under the jurisdiction of SDMC, four in North MCD and two in EDMC. The counting will take place on May 17. The polls were necessitated after the resignation of nine councillors on becoming legislators after the 2013 Assembly polls and four after the 2015 polls.
BJP, which rules in all the three MCDs, has claimed that its candidates will get the “largest vote share” in the by-polls. Citing the finding of an “internal survey” by the party, Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay said: “BJP has regained the confidence of the people of Delhi and in these civic by-elections we will get the largest vote share and our performance will be the best.” As per Congress, which is trying to regain its lost ground in Delhi, it has even deployed its senior national level leaders for campaigning. Ghulam Nabi Azad, Shakeel Ahamad, Raj Babbar and Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken campaigned in different wards in North, South, and East MCDs. In his meetings, Maken held both AAP and BJP responsible for “stalling” development and pushing people to face hardship.