Arvind Kejriwal: ‘Aam aadmi’ scripts extraordinary win to return as Delhi CM

NEW DELHI :

ARVIND Kejriwal, engineer, civil servant and Delhi’s man with a development agenda, is the David who slayed the mighty Goliath for the second time in five years. The Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party is poised to win 63 of Delhi’s 70 seats, leaving the BJP with seven and decimating the Congress, overcoming the BJP’s divisive campaign. Nine years ago, Kejriwal slipped into the political frame behind Anna Hazare during the Lokpal movement in 2011 before quickly enlarging his canvas, first as a satyagrah activist and then as founder of the cleverly named Aam Aadmi Party that took on the might of the BJP to reclaim Delhi for a third time on Tuesday. The name of his party as carefully chosen as his public persona perhaps, Delhi’s 51-year-old Chief Minister is the embodiment of the everyday man but one who has tailored his politics and campaign in keeping with the times.

AAP candidate from Greater Kailash constituency Saurabh Bhardwaj holds a mace as he along with his supporters, dressed as Lord Hanuman, celebrates his victory in the Assembly polls, outside a temple. (R) AAP leader Raghav Chadha displays the victory sign at AAP office in New Delhi. (PTI)

As he emerged on the victory stage to loud cheers from his AAP supporters and shouted “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, ‘Inquilab Zindabad” and “Vande Mataram” before saying “I love you” to Delhiites, many remembered the earnest activist who went on a hunger strike for a Lokpal bill in 2011. The year after, in 2012, he started his political party and emerged as a mascot of an alternative brand of politics – and the ‘aam aadmi’ politician with his muffler casually wrapped around his neck, and sometimes his head, oversised shirts and open toed sandals.

Though his ambitions to make the AAP a national party have not met with much success, the Delhi chief minister’s hat is one that will stay -- for the next five years at least. His effort to be seen as a direct challenger to Narendra Modi came a cropper in 2014 when he contested the Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi. He tried to make an electoral dent in Punjab and Goa in 2017 but that didn’t work either. So Delhi it is for the moment. PM congratulates Kejriwal: PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday congratulated AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal for his party’s win in the Delhi Assembly elections and wished him “the very best” in fulfilling the aspirations of the people of the national capital.

“Congratulations to AAP and shri @ArvindKejriwal ji for the victory in the Delhi assembly elections. Wishing them the very best in fulfilling the aspirations of the people of Delhi,” the prime minister wrote on Twitter. The Aam Aadmi Party is set to form Government in Delhi for a third consecutive term. After Delhi win, AAP hints at going national: AS THE Aam Aadmi Party swept the Delhi Assembly polls, the party gave hints of taking its politics at the national level. Addressing volunteers for the first time after the results, AAP Delhi chief Gopal Rai said the city gave votes to love and defeated hate. He said in Hindi that “‘Baat nikli hai toh dur talak jaigi’ (We will go a long way).”

Rai said this politics of change will not be just limited to the national capital. “The way you celebrate love in Delhi, it gave a new definition of patriotism that involved working for the common man. A new kind of nationalism was born here which speaks about common man and improvement in their living standards.” Rai said Arvind Kejriwal has declared that whenever there is a fight between hate and love, hate was defeated. “The entire nation was watching, they (BJP) were trying to spread hate. But Delhi proved the city has love in its heart.” Rai said it was felt that the BJP will do anything to form a government but “I want to say the way Delhi has shown love, that love will not just continue in Delhi in the coming five years but will also spread across the country.” He added people used to say, what can AAP do. “But Delhi stood with us as we changed the politics.”

Delhi didn’t reject us as BJP’s vote share has increased: Manoj Tiwari

NEW DELHI :

DELHI BJP chief Manoj Tiwari on Tuesday said that the party will review why it failed to meet its own expectations in the Assembly polls and saw a moral victory in the fact that the party’s vote share has increased since 2015. “Delhi must have given mandate after careful thinking. Our vote percentage has increased from 32 per cent to around 38 per cent. Delhi did not reject us and the increase (in vote share) is a good sign for us,” he told reporters. He said the BJP hopes that there would be less blame game and more work in the national capital and congratulated Arvind Kejriwal on his party’s victory in the polls. After winning the Patparganj seat, AAP senior leader Manish Sisodia accused the BJP of indulging in the politics of hate. “We indulge in politics of development not politics of hate. We’re against the roadblock in Shaheen Bagh as we were earlier,” he said.

‘Saari Delhi tere naam’: AAP’s new slogan for Kejriwal

NEW DELHI :

AS hundreds of Aam Aadmi Party volunteers welcomed Arvind Kejriwal at the office of the returning officer, where Kejriwal appeared to collect the poll certificate, they chanted “Kejriwal, Kejriwal, saari Delhi tere naam”. Kejriwal came to the returning officer’s office in Gole Market after visiting the Hanuman temple in Connaught Place.

Exit polls get their prediction right in forecasting AAP’s victory

NEW DELHI :

ALL exit polls proved to be right in predicting AAP’s victory, with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party registering a stupendous win in the Delhi Assembly polls. Of the exit polls, the India Today-Axis, ABP-C Voter, TV9 Bharatvarsh-Cicero got their numbers right for both the parties. The India Today-Axis survey had predicted 59-68 seats for the AAP and 2-11 for the BJP. This is for the fourth time that the India Today-Axis survey has got its predictions right, the first being for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Elated over getting the figures right, the chairman and managing director of Axis My India also shook his leg in a news channel’s studio. The ABP-C Voter had given the range of 49 and 63 seats to AAP, and between five to 19 seats to the BJP.

The TV9 Bharatvarsh-Cicero had predicted 52-64 seats for the AAP and 6-16 for the BJP. Almost all exit polls predictions came true for the Congress, which had ruled the city between 1998 and 2013 but drew a blank in the 2015 polls. The Times Now-Ipsos exit poll predicted that Kejriwal will retain power with the AAP winning 47 seats against 23 for the BJP. The Republic-Jan ki Baat survey gave the AAP 48-61 seats and the BJP 9-21 seats. An exit poll put out by Neta-NewsX said the AAP may win 53-57 seats and the BJP 11-17. The ABP’s survey said the AAP’s vote share may be a whopping 50.4 per cent against the BJP’s 36 per cent. The corresponding share for the two parties was 56 per cent and 35 per cent according to the India Today-Axis poll. In 2015, the AAP and the BJP had won 67 and three seats respectively. Their corresponding vote share was 54.3 and 32.3 per cent.