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Lok Sabha Elections 2024 Phase 6 voting: Delhi is all set to witness a triangular contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-Congress alliance and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP).
While the BJP and the BSP have fielded candidates for all seven Lok Sabha seats, the AAP and Congress went for a seat-sharing deal. The AAP has fielded candidates in four seats – New Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi, East Delhi – and Congress fielded candidates in the remaining three seats- Chandni Chowk, North-East and North-West.
Here’s a full list of BJP, INDIA bloc and BSP candidates from Delhi:
| Delhi lok Sabha constituency | AAP/Congress | BJP | BSP |
| East Delhi | Kuldeep Kumar | Harsh Malhotra | Mohd. Waqar Choudhary |
| New Delhi | Somnath Bharthi | Bansuri Swaraj | Raj Kumar Anand |
| West Delhi | Mahabal Mishra | Kamaljeet Sehrawat | Vishakha |
| South Delhi | Sahiram Pehalwan | Ramvir Singh Bidhuri | Abdul Basit |
| North East | Kanhaiya Kumar | Manoj Tiwari | Ashok Kumar |
| Chandni Chowk | JP Agarwal | Praveen Khandelwal | Abul Kalam Azad |
| North West | Udit Raj | Yogendra Chandolia | Vijay Bauddh |
The voting for all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital will go to polls in the sixth phase on Saturday, May 25. Here’s a look at the challenges and opportunities before political parties and the alliance contesting polls this time in Delhi:
BJP
Despite Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP being in power, the BJP won all seven Lok Sabha elections in Delhi in 2019 and 2014. The BP has seen huge margins of victories of its candidates in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Before 2014, Delhi was the Congress stronghold.
This time, the BJP has replaced all except one sitting MP Manoj Tiwari from North East, which may have some repercussion for the new candidates. It will be for the first time that the BJP will face a one-two-one contest against the AAP-Congress alliance on all seven Lok Sabha seats after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
While issues and factors like Ayodhya Ram temple, Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and scrapping of Article 370 may favour the BJP, the lack of a popular face in Delhi’s party unit may impact its polls prospects.
AAP-Congress alliance
The Lok Sabha Elections 2024 will serve as a preparatory exercise before the 2025 assembly polls for Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP. Notably, despite winning the Delhi assembly polls twice, the AAP didn’t manage win a single Lok Sabha seat so far in the national capital.
Delhi was once a bastion of the Congress. The grand old party had won all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, while it emerged victorious on six seats in the 2004 elections – when it had returned to power in the country.
Now, this is the first time the AAP and the Congress are fighting the elections together, as part of the Opposition’s INDIA bloc.
The Congress seems to enjoy popularity among minority voters in Delhi, but it lacks strong leaders. It recently faced a jolt when Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely stepped down from his post and joined the BJP later. Lovely had cited the Congress-AAP alliance as one of the reasons behind his move.
Meanwhile, Congress’ alliance partner AAP is under the scrutiny of the Enforcement Directorate over the money laundering case related to the now-scraped Delhi Excise policy.
AAP’s leader, Arvind Kejriwal, is the current chief minister of Delhi who was arrested in March in connection with the same case. He was later granted interim bail for Lok Sabha campaigning.
Now, AAP leaders claim that Kejriwal coming out of jail has boosted the morale of party workers and leaders. However, political strategist Prashant Kishor believes that the Delhi CM won’t be able to impact voters’ sentiments beyond Delhi and Punjab.
Moreover, the BJP has used the issue of corruption to target the AAP whose key leaders like Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh are in jail in connection with the excise policy case.
BSP
Mayawati’s BSP sees an uphill task in Delhi in the wake of the BJP vs INDIA bloc battle. However, it only just ahead of the polls that former AAP minister Raj Kumar Anand quit the party and joined the BJP.
The BSP is the only national party after the BJP that has fielded candidates in all seven constituencies in Delhi.
The BSP’s vote share in Delhi in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls dropped to 1.23 percent, while that in the 2019, it further dropped marginally to 1.08 percent.
The results for the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 will be delcared on June 4.
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Published: 25 May 2024, 06:20 AM IST
