Voting is underway across 70 seats of Delhi Assembly today, February 5.
The national capital is witnessing a multi-cornered contest, with the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) and the Congress vying for power.
The AAP comfortably won the last two elections – 2015 and 2020.
Arvind Kejriwal's AAP is fighting to retain power for the third consecutive term, while the BJP seeks a return to power after 27 years. The Congress, which ruled Delhi for 15 years, is contesting to reclaim its lost grip over the Delhi assembly.
As many as 1.5 crore or 15.5 million residents of Delhi are eligible to vote in the Delhi Election today, with 699 candidates in the fray to become a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). Voting is underway across 13,766 polling stations in what is being seen as the most closely fought assembly elections in years.
Here is a look at 7 key battles in the national capital in today's election
It's a prestige battle for Arvind Kejriwal, who is seeking a fourth consecutive term as MLA from New Delhi seat. The AAP chief has won the seat in the last three elections. But this time, the former chief minister of Delhi faces BJP’s Parvesh Singh Verma and Congress party’s Sandeep Dikshit. Kejriwal won this seat with 21,687 votes in the 2020 assembly elections.
Like many other seats of Delhi, the Kalkaji assembly constituency is witnessing a three-way contest in this assembly election. Chief Minister Atishi faces Congress party's Alka Lamba and BJP’s former MP Ramesh Bidhuri from this seat.
In 2020, Atishi won the seat by over 11,000 votes against BJP’s Dharambir Singh.
Former Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, has moved from his Patparganj seat and is contesting today's election from Jangpura seat. Young AAP leader Praveen Kumar previously won this set in 2015 and 2020. In a three-way fight, Sisodia is up against BJP’s Tarvinder Singh Marwah and Congress party's Farhad Suri.
Manish Sisodia won from the Patparganj constituency in the last three elections. This time, however, the AAP has fielded UPSC coaching teacher-turned-politician Avadh Ojha ‘Sir’ as its candidate. Ojha ‘Sir’ faces BJP’s Ravinder Singh Negi and the Congress party’s Anil Chaudhary from the seat. Before the AAP, Patparganj was the Congress-dominated constituency from 1998 to 2013.
Malviya Nagar seat in South Delhi is another high-profile contest. AAP MLA Somnath Bharti, who has won the seat in the last three elections, faces BJP’s Satish Upadhyay and Congress party's Jitendra Kumar Kochar in the contest.
AAP minister Saurabh Bharadwaj also seeks a fourth straight term from Greater Kailash seat in South Delhi. Bharadwaj faces Shikha Rai of the BJP and Garvit Singhvi of the Congress from this high-profile seat. Bharadwaj won the past two elections with a vote share north of 50 per cent votes.
Amanatullah Khan of AAP is contesting from the Muslim-dominated Okhla seat for the third consecutive time. Khan is up against Congress party's Ariba Khan and AIMIM's Shifa Ur Rehman Khan from the seat.
Shifa Ur Rehman, an accused in the Delhi Rights 2020 case, is contesting the election from the prison. The BJP has fielded Manish Chaudhary from the seat.
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