New Delhi: The Congress, which governed Delhi under Sheila Dikshit for three consecutive terms, seems to be continuing its downward slide in the metropolitan, according to the poll agencies.
Having touched a historic low of under 10 per cent in the last elections, Congress is likely to be restricted to single digits again. The average number of seats that the pollsters are giving to Congress on eve of voting is 1.
The C Voter and Times Now-Ipsos have predicted a vote share of 6 per cent for the grand old party. Axis My India has predicted that it would get 5 per cent votes. Since the restoration of Delhi assembly, which was dissolved in 1991 when it was turned into a union territory, Congress touched its highest point in 2003. This was the election in which Congress under the leadership of Sheila Dikshit was fighting to return to power. The party finished first, by a huge margin, bagging close to 48 per cent votes.
The party’s fortunes slid slightly in 2008 elections when it still managed to get a respectable 40.31 per cent. In 2013, possibly the only time Delhi polls were a tri-cornered contest, it got 24.6 per cent. And its rout was signaled in 2015 when it couldn’t even manage double digits, and for the first time in Delhi’s history, got zero seats.
From 2015 onwards, data has shown that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has grown at the expense of Congress and other smaller parties. The exit polls on Saturday suggested that this process is continuing to a point where the Congress has possibly shrunk into irrelevance.
Even in places like Dwarka and Chandni Chowk, where the party decided to field AAP turncoats like Adarsh Shastri and Alka Lamba, exit polls suggest it is unlikely to reap any benefits. It had also fielded most number (55) of crorepati candidates. Some had suggested, based on Congress’ surprising tally in municipality elections and its 22 per cent vote share (which was far higher than AAP’s vote share) in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, that Congress was again on the rise. But polls predict that will not be the case.
Various media reports talked about dissatisfaction with the manner in which senior Congress leaders remained absent during the campaigning season. Apart from a handful of rallies in Old Delhi, Jangpura, Sangam Vihar, the Gandhi siblings – Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi – largely remained absent from the capital.
At the same time, Union Home Minister Amit Shah by himself held around 50 nukkad sabhas and road shows. Arvind Kejriwal was part of a similar number of public appearances. The 2015 assembly election results showed that Congress, which could not even open its account, had hit rock bottom. But some saw in it a silver lining – that the party could only rise from there. Congress, according to the pollsters, seems to have proven even those die-hard optimists wrong.
Comments
0 comment