Big win: BJP improves on its 2012 tally

BJP's massive victory over its rivals in the MCD elections on Wednesday came after it registered a 36.37 percent share of the total votes cast.

Out of over 1.32 crore registered voters, about 77,25,000 exercised their power to vote. In all, BJP received 25,75,117 votes on its way to victory.

By winning 181 of the 270 wards, the saffron party bettered its tally of 138 wards during the 2012 MCD polls, which it had won as well.

Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party, making its debut in the Municipal elections, managed to bag just 48 wards. The Congress was a distant third with 30 seats.

Among other competitors, the Bahujan Samaj Party won three wards, Indian National Lok Dal and Samajwadi Party bagged one each and independents won six wards.

Meanwhile, a large number of hopefuls lost their security deposit after failing to get the necessary amount of votes in their respective wards.

As many as 40 of the 270 Aam Aadmi Party candidates and 92 of the Congress forfeited their security deposits, State Election Commissioner (SEC) S K Srivastava disclosed on Wednesday.

Only five BJP candidates lost their deposits this time round. In 2012, 18 BJP contestants had lost their deposits. The number of Congress candidates who lost their deposits in 2012 was 26.

The security deposit is forfeited if a candidate fails to garner a minimum of 1/6th of the total number of valid votes.

In all, 1,790 candidates of the total 2,516 candidates in the fray lost their deposits in Sunday's municipal polls, votes for which were counted on Wednesday, the SEC said.

The candidate who won with the highest margin of votes was BJP's Kamaljeet Sehrawat. Sehrawat left his closest competitor, AAP's Sushma Jindal, behind by 9,886 votes in Dwarka-B (South DMC) ward.In Krishna Nagar (East DMC) ward, BJP's Sanjeev Kapoor defeated the AAP's Naveen Gupta by 9,332 votes.

In Saraswati Vihar (North MCD), Neeraj Kumar of the BJP defeated the AAP's Desraj Aggarwal by 7,895 votes.

Anita Tanwar of the BJP won by two votes in Chattarpur (SDMC), while Gurjeet Kaur of the same party won by 58 seats in Bhajanpura (EDMC).

Seema Tahira of the Congress won by 259 votes from Bazar Sita Ram (North MCD).

Six independents made their presence felt in a big way. Independent candidates Poonam from Nangal Thakran and Archana from Holambi Khurd displayed woman power all on their own from North Delhi.