Political Message From Delhi Municipal Corporation Elections

New Delhi: Elections for Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) may be too small in comparison to any assembly or Lok Sabha polls, yet its recent results have important messages for political parties and voters of India. AAP managed to take over the MCD with a tally of 134 corporators, but the BJP also saved its face by getting 104 wins. Congress was pushed back to oblivion with only nine seats in hand.

It proved that Congress has completely lost its hold on the capital city. In the 2017 MCD elections, Congress had 30 seats, while the BJP and the AAP won in 181 and 48 seats.

Although an urban body election, MCD polls bear much importance for the AAP and BJP. For the first time, AAP won an election against the BJP. It dethroned BJP from the MCD. Even after losing assembly polls in 2015, BJP managed to win in MCD in 2015. BJP had used all possible tricks to woo Delhi voters for the MCD polls. Union ministers and State CMs had campaigned for BJP’s MCD candidates. PM Modi had handed over some slum-rehab flat keys to beneficiaries.

The “Double Engine” slogan of BJP was countered by “Kejriwal’s government, Kejriwal’s corporator’ slogan of AAP.

Congress did not seem to be much interested in the MCD polls. Rahul Gandhi as well as other top leaders of the Congress stayed away from the campaign of this urban body polls. The party’s top brass could not realize that in less than a decade, Congress has completely lost its support base among inhabitants of the Nation’s capital, which surely sends a strong message to voters all over the country regarding the present state of the party.

It may not be successful in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, yet by winning MCD AAP has proved that it is a political brand that can stand against the BJP juggernaut. AAP’s mohalla-level politics in Delhi will get a boost through this win. In the future comparison between ‘Gujarat Model’ of BJP and ‘Delhi Model’ of AAP may become a major issue in national electoral politics.