Capital leaves its mark
Millions in Delhi vote in the penultimate phase of Lok Sabha elections. Turnout at 58.7%, lower than 2019, likely to revise upwards.
New Delhi From the exalted gates of the Rashtrapati Bhavan and lush lawns of India Gate to the cramped bylanes of Seelampur and the history suffused alleys of Mehrauli, millions of people in the Capital braved searing temperatures and snaking queues to exercise their franchise in the penultimate phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Saturday.
The provisional turnout at 11.30pm stood at 58.7%, roughly 3.7 percentage points behind the 2019 figure of 60.6%. But this number was likely to be revised upwards when the Election Commission of India (ECI) releases final figures.
The queues outside Delhi’s 13,641 polling booths bore witness to an eclectic mix of people standing with their slips and voting cards, ranging from Supreme Court justices and senior ministers to delivery agents who drive the city’s gig economy to old women in wheelchairs, canopies of cotton sarees protecting them from the scorching sun.
“Elections are like a festival so I had no problem with the heat,” said Lakshmi Bansal, a homemaker.
Dressed in a white saree, President Droupadi Murmu voted in an all-woman booth set up inside Rashtrapati Bhavan premises. Later, Murmu held up her inked finger as she posed for photos against a backdrop that read “I’m a proud voter”.
Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, external affairs minister S Jaishankar, vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar, chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan and chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar also cast their vote in Delhi.
“Every vote counts, make yours count too! Democracy thrives when its people are engaged and active in the electoral process. I specially urge women voters and youth voters to vote in large numbers,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
“Today by voting I have fulfilled my duties as a citizen of the country and this is a major duty of every citizen of the country,” said Chandrachud.
Senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and her children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (with her children who are first-time voters), Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge were among the prominent Opposition politicians to vote, “Please vote, use your right to vote, and vote against dictatorship,” said Kejriwal.
The battle for Delhi, the seat of national power, is a microcosm of the electoral contest across the nation with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which holds all seven seats, taking on an alliance of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress, both constituents of the Opposition’s umbrella national coalition.
At stake are not only the seven seats after a fierce campaign – headlined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah on one side, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Delhi chief minister Kejriwal on the other – but also bragging rights about control of the national capital that houses Parliament, the PM’s residence, the presidential estate, and a bevy of dignitaries national and international.
Delhi’s voters are spread across seven segments – New Delhi, Chandni Chowk, North West Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi, East Delhi and North East Delhi – that are beset with their peculiar electoral eccentricities and social cleavages but which came together in the festival of democracy on Saturday.
P Krishnamurthy, the city’s chief electoral officer of Delhi said the poll panel undertook a slew of steps to tackle the intense heat.
“Proper shading was arranged at all polling booths, providing relief to voters as they exercised their rights,” said Krishnamurthy.
The highest provisional turnout was reported from North East Delhi, which recorded a poll percentage of 62.9%, compared to 63.8% in 2019. The seat’s incumbent parliamentarian Manoj Tiwari of the BJP is taking on Kanhaiya Kumar of the Congress.
The lowest turnout was reported from New Delhi, which recorded a poll percentage of 52.9%, compared to 56.9% in 2019. The constituency was witness to a battle between the BJP’s Bansuri Swaraj and the AAP’s Somnath Bharti.
Other than the seven seats in Delhi, all 10 seats in Haryana including Gurugram, eight in Bihar, four in Jharkhand, six in Odisha, 14 in Uttar Pradesh, eight in West Bengal, and one in Jammu & Kashmir also went to the polls. The BJP won 40 of these seats in 2019, its allies five, and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties four.
The overall turnout across India stood at 60.3%, compared to 64.9% in 2019.
With this, elections in 28 states and Union territories are complete. Only 57 seats across eight states and UTs remain, and will go to the polls on June 1. The results will be announced on June 4.
The city started buzzing hours after sunrise as thousands of polling personnel fanned out across the Capital, setting up booths and an elaborate screening mechanism. Seventy booths, christened pink booths, were decorated in hues of pink and white and were staffed exclusively by women.
Enthusiasm was seen among first-time voters nearly throughout the city. “I am excited to have voted for the first time. The issues being discussed in the run-up to the polls left me confused and later I decided to vote for a better future for the people of the country,” said a beaming Ananya Chauhan, showing her inked finger at a polling station in CR Park.
Noisy queues had already formed outside colonies and schools, inside high-rise complexes and next to boxy government schools when the doors opened at 7am. Polling was brisk even as the sizzling sun climbed overhead.
Mukesh Ahlawat, an elderly voter who cast his vote at the MCD primary school in Chirag Dilli, said there is much excitement among the people and many turned up early in the day to vote. “I voted early in the morning along with my family members. Several issues are dominating the Lok Sabha election including local and national issues,” he said.
Since 1996, the party that has won Delhi has also triumphed nationally. The last three general elections in the Capital have seen clean sweeps – 2009 by the Congress and 2014 and 2019 by the BJP. Except in 1967, 1989 and 1991, the party which has won a majority of constituencies from Delhi has always finished first in the Lok Sabha.
The battle for Delhi holds echoes of the national contest because people from all over the country have always migrated to the Capital for employment or the aspiration of a better life, making the city a cultural melting pot. The issues at play are also largely national – Modi’s popularity vs Kejriwal’s rooted connect, nationalism vs federalism, BJP’s welfare outreach vs AAP’s focus on health care and education, and questions of Constitution, reservation and communalism.
This time, the contest is bipolar for the first time in 15 years. The AAP is fighting four seats – New Delhi (Somnath Bharti), South (Sahi Ram), East (Kuldeep Kumar) and West (Mahabal Mishra) – and the Congress three – Chandni Chowk (JP Aggarwal), North East (Kanhaiya Kumar) and North West (Udit Raj). They face an uphill battle against the BJP, which won 57% of the vote in 2019 and held a 16 percentage point advantage over the combined vote shares of the AAP and the Congress.
This time, the BJP has dropped six of its seven incumbent MPs to ward off anti-incumbency, repeating only the North-East Delhi parliamentarian Manoj Tiwari, who is taking on Kanhaiya Kumar of the Congress.
The BJP – which has fielded Ramvir Singh Bidhuri (South Delhi), Bansuri Swaraj (New Delhi), Praveen Khandelwal (Chandni Chowk), Kamaljeet Sehrawat (West Delhi), Harsh Malhotra (East Delhi), Yogendra Chandolia (North West Delhi) and Manoj Tiwari (North East Delhi) – modelled its campaign on the contours of its national pitch around Modi’s governance record and his popularity.
Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said people of Delhi enthusiastically voted for continuation of development that has been done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Delhi voted for a strong government expressing faith in PM Modi. The road infrastructure development, construction of rapid rail, expansion of metro rail, electric buses provided by the central government, construction of international standard Yashobhumi and Bharat Mandapam and the services BJP rendered for the people during the Covid-19 pandemic have played big role in people voting for BJP,” Sachdeva said.
The Opposition, in contrast, focussed on local issues of governance and anti-incumbency against BJP’s parliamentarians. The campaign was enthused by the release of Kejriwal, who was freed by the Supreme Court on May 10 after spending 50 days in jail over corruption charges in connection with the now-scrapped excise policy case.
AAP leaders expressed confidence that the INDIA bloc would sweep Delhi’s seven seats despite “tricks adopted by the BJP”. “Irrespective of the heat, the people of Delhi have turned out in good numbers to thwart the dictatorship from the country. Delhiites have responded decisively to the illegal incarceration of their beloved CM with their votes. They’ve made it clear once again that they value good education, healthcare, 24/7 electricity, water, and free bus rides over empty ‘jumlas’,” the AAP spokesperson said.
Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief Devender Yadav said the way people turned up in large numbers is a clear indication that there is strong anti-incumbency on the ground. “The voting trend indicates that people have voted for change, and Congress and INDIA bloc were all set to sweep the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi to give a big boost to Shri Rahul Gandhi’s relentless campaign against the authoritarianism of the Modi government,” said Devender Yadav.
