The big headline in this Delhi election is BJP’s Parvesh Verma defeating Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. But behind the story is a subplot of how Congress’s Sandeep Dikshit, former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s son, managed to ensure Mr Kejriwal’s defeat even though he finished third.
For the New Delhi constituency, this is a deja vu of sorts. Former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit won the seat, then called Gole Market, in 1998 and 2003. After delimitation, the seat was called New Delhi and Ms Dikshit won it in 2008. In the 2013 polls, Mr Kejriwal jumped into the poll arena. Riding high on popularity after the India Against Corruption movement, the AAP leader trumped the three-term Chief Minister by over 25,000 votes, effectively ending her political career, and emerged as a giant slayer. The AAP’s 2013 victory also removed the Congress from power.
Twelve years later, AAP’s national convener is now the Goliath defeated by the BJP’s David — 47-year-old Parvesh Verma. But another story is unfolding in the numbers. Mr Kejriwal has lost to Mr Verma by a margin of 4,089 votes. And Sandeep Dikshit managed to get 4,568 votes and finished a distant third. So, if the AAP and the Congress had contested this election together, Mr Kejriwal would have likely scored a slim victory. But that was not to be.
The numbers tell another story. In the 2020 election, Mr Kejriwal won New Delhi, defeating the BJP’s Sunil Yadav by over 21,000 votes. Romesh Sabharwal, the Congress candidate, had then scored 3,220 votes. So, going by the numbers, the BJP has surely made massive gains in the constituency between these two elections. Also, the corruption allegations against the AAP convener, in the liquor policy case and alleged irregularities in the revamp of the Chief Minister’s home, appear to have played on the voters’ minds.
In the run-up to the election, Mr Dikshit had run a spirited campaign against the AAP leader and said the Congress must raise the Delhi government’s failures. His sister Latika, who campaigned for him, had said Sheila Dikshit continues to live in the hearts of the people of Delhi for her key role in developing the national capital.
Interestingly, Mr Verma is also the son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma. A BJP veteran, Sahib Singh Verma was Chief Minister of the national capital from February 1996 to October 1998 and succeeded BJP’s Madan Lal Khurana in the top post.