MCD polls: BJP set to win, Congress chief Ajay Maken resigns

The BJP is set for a sweeping victory in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls, with the saffron party leading in 181. Trends for 270 seats point to a clear victory for the party, as the other major parties fall behind by a huge margin.

The AAP managed to gain some ground with trends by 12 pm on Wednesday showing that it was leading in 46 wards, while the Congress trailed on the third spot with the lead in 31 wards.BJP also managed to win 3 seats, Janakpuri West, Rajender Nagar and Janakpuri South, for which the results were announced.

Counting of votes began at 8 am on Wednesday, with BJP gaining early leads in all the three municipal corporations — NDMC, SDMC and EDMC.

As per available trends, BJP was leading in 46 East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) wards while AAP in 9 and Congress in 5 wards respectively. Trends were available for all 63 wards by noon.In South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), BJP was leading in 71 wards while AAP and Congress were ahead in 15 and 12 wards respectively, in the trends available for all 104 wards.

In North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), trends for all 103 wards showed BJP leading in 64 seats, while AAP was leading in 22 and Congress in 14.

Voting for 270 of the total 270 municipal



wards was held on April 23. Voting was cancelled at two wards where the candidates died.

Taking full responsibility for the Congress party falling way behind rival BJP in the MCD polls, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken offered to resign from his post and sent his resignation letter to party president Sonia Gandhi. Responding to former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s remark that the Congress here should have campaigned more aggressively, Maken said that he could not have been more aggressive without being disrespectable, and that he respects Dikshit as a senior leader and mentor of his.

BJP national president Amit Shah, speaking to the media as results were pouring in and the landslide win for BJP became clear, said that the verdict is a vote in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s three years in power and a vote against the “negative politics” of the AAP. Shah said that the Delhi municipal poll win comes after the party won convincingly in the Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur assembly polls. “The people of Delhi have showed that negative kind of politics will not win and only positive politics will win. This is a vote in favour of Modiji’s three years in power,” he said. He also thanked Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and the party workers for the win.