New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party’s gamble on one-time Congress leaders has paid dividends as five of the six defectors whom the party fielded in the Delhi elections have won in their respective constituencies.
Former Congress leaders Shoaib Iqbal, Raj Kumari Dhillon, Dhanwati Chandela, Vinay Mishra and Parlad Singh Sawhney have all won on AAP tickets.
The only leader to buck this trend is Ram Singh Netaji, who is trailing the BJP’s Ramvir Singh Bidhuri by 3,719 votes from Badarpur.
Some contentious choices
AAP’s decision to induct Shoaib Iqbal, a five-time Congress MLA from Matia Mahal, had raised eyebrows just days before the election process began. The BJP levelled allegations that Iqbal had been accused of several criminal cases and that AAP was indulging in Muslim vote-bank politics by getting him to join.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had responded to the claims by challenging the BJP government at the Centre to arrest any AAP members who are proven criminals.
On Tuesday, Iqbal demolished the BJP’s Ravinder Gupta, winning the Matia Mahal seat by 50,241 votes. It will be the sixth time that he will be representing the constituency.
AAP also created a stir by fielding Vinay Mishra, the son of the former Congress MP Mahabal Mishra, at Dwarka. Mishra beat the BJP’s Parduymn Rajput by 14,387 votes at Dwarka.
The decision, however, prompted sitting Dwarka MLA Adarsh Shastri, the grandson of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, to quit the AAP. He was joined by the sitting Badarpur MLA N.D. Sharma, whose ticket was handed to Ram Netaji, another former Congressman.
Also read: What Delhi can look forward to from new AAP govt — Deshbhakti course, more welfare schemes
The crucial battles
In Hari Nagar, Raj Kumari Dhillon, a former Congress ward councillor and the first woman to be fielded from the seat, defeated BJP candidate Tajinder Bagga by 20,131 votes. Bagga is the founder of the ultra-nationalist fringe outfit, the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena.
In a case of swapped fortunes, Congress candidate Alka Lamba was defeated by AAP’s Parlad Singh Sawhney, a former Congress leader. Lamba, as an AAP candidate, had beaten Sawhney in the 2015 elections but she quit the party in September 2019 after disagreements and a public spat. On 8 February, she once again sparked controversy as she tried to slap an AAP worker who had reportedly made comments about her son.
Lamba has finished a poor third, losing her deposit after securing just 3,881 votes.
The other former Congress leader to win is Dhanwati Chandela who beat the BJP’s Ramesh Khanna by 22,972 votes at Rajouri Garden.
Also read: BJP is too national to win assembly election in Delhi