Delhi Legislative Assembly election, 2013

Delhi state assembly election, 2013
India
4 December 2013 (2013-12-04)
All 70 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Delhi
36 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls

  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Dr. Harsh Vardhan Arvind Kejriwal Sheila Dikshit
Party BJP AAP INC
Leader since 2012 2015 1998
Leader's seat Krishna Nagar New Delhi New Delhi
(lost)
Seats before 23  – 43
Seats after 31 28 8
Seat change Increase 8 New Decrease 35
Percentage 33% 29.5% 24.6%
Swing Decrease 3.4% Increase 29.5% Decrease 15.7%

Map of Delhi showing results of the 2013 Vidhan Sabha election
Chief Minister before election

Sheila Dikshit
INC

 Elected Chief Minister

Arvind Kejriwal
AAP

The Delhi Legislative Assembly election was held on 4 December 2013, with the result announced on 8 December resulting in formation of the Fifth Legislative Assembly of Delhi.[1][2]

The Bharatiya Janata Party won a plurality, closely followed by Aam Aadmi Party, in its first election; this resulted in an hung assembly. After the BJP refused to form a government in the hung assembly, the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Arvind Kejriwal became chief minister with "unconditional" support from the Indian National Congress (INC).[3]

Electoral law change

This was one of the first five elections in which the Election Commission of India implemented a "None of the above" (NOTA) voting option, allowing the electorate to register a neutral vote but not to outright reject candidates.[4] In a first, the Election Commission of India also appointed Central Awareness Observers, whose main task was to oversee voter awareness and facilitation.[5]

Contesting parties

There were 810 candidates running for office, including 224 independents.[6]

Party Seats contested Chief Minister Candidate Notes/Link to Candidate lists
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) 69 Arvind Kejriwal[7] [8]
All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) 2 [9]
Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) 66 Harsh Vardhan[10] [11]
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 70 [12]
Communist Party of India (CPI) 10 [9]
Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) 3 [9]
Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation (CPI-ML) (L) 4 [9]
Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) 11 [13]
Indian National Congress (INC) 70 Sheila Dixit[14] [15]
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 70 [16]
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) 4 Harsh Vardhan
(as part of NDA)
Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) 1

BJP and SAD formed a pre-poll alliance; SAD contested four seats (Hari Nagar, Rajouri Garden, Kalkaji and Shahdara), while BJP contested the rest.[17]

Campaign

The AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal called the BJP's Harsh Vardhan the "Manmohan Singh of the BJP" as incapable of stemming the "rot" in Delhi's governance. He added: "We will help the people of Delhi get rid of Congress misgovernance first, and then ensure change at the national level in the Lok Sabha polls." However, Vardhan was supported by the BJP's prime ministerial candidate in the Indian general election, 2014, Narendra Modi.[18] The Hindustan Times suggested that the Rajnath Singh-appointed BJP Delhi leader, Vijay Goel, though organisationally competent, lost favour due to his exclusion of established regional leaders in reorganising local units. Singh was still viewed as reluctant to "change horses in mid-stream" but agreed. Modi led the charge, with other party leaders, to have Vardhan as the chief ministerial candidate[19] and Goel himself agreed to the nomination of Vardhan.[20] The AAP released its first electoral manifesto.[21]

Opinion polls

Number of seats

Survey Date AAP BJP INC Others Source
AAP-Cicero 30 November 2013 38-50 11-17 8-14 0-13 [22]
BJP (Internal) November 2013 5 36 11 - 18 "swing seats where the readings were too close to call"[22]
India TV-CVoter November 2013 10 29 27 4 [22]
India Today, ORG November 2013 6 36 22 4 [23]
Times Now, C-Voter November 2013 18 25 24 3 [24]
CNN-IBN, The Week and CSDS October 2013 19-25 22-28 19-25 0-2 [25]
ABP News-AC Nielsen October 2013 18 28 22 2 [26]
India TV-CVoter-Times Now September 2013 7 30 29 4 [27]
Hindustan Times-C Fore September 2013 7-12 22-27 32-37 0-4 [28]

Vote share

Survey Date AAP BJP INC Others Source
AAP-Cicero 30 November 2013 36% 27% 26% 11% [22]
BJP November 2013 18% 35% 24% 23% [22]
India TV-CVoter November 2013 24% 33% 30% 13% [22]
CNN-IBN, The Week and CSDS October 2013 28% 29% 27% 16% [26]
ABP News-AC Nielsen September 2013 15% 34% 29% 22% [29]
India TV-CVoter-Times Now September 2013 16% 38% 34% 12% [27]
Hindustan Times-C Fore September 2013 20% 32% 34% 14% [28]
AAP-Cicero September 2013 32% 23% 25% 20% [30]

Election

There were 11,753 polling stations, including the presence of EVMs, while 630 identified as critical and hyper critical. There were 11.9 million eligible voters, of which 6.6 million were men and 5.3 million were women while there were 405,000 first time voters. 32,801 Delhi Police personnel and 107 companies of central paramilitary forces were deployed to ensure a peaceful election. Polling stations opened at 8:00 am and turnout was 66%.[6]

Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) along with EVMs was used in 1 assembly seat in Delhi elections-New Delhi.[31][32] Polling stations in Tuglaqabad, Karol Bagh, Trilokpuri and Badarpur reportedly had long waits because EVMs dysfunctioned. In Jungpura, Badli, Krishna Nagar and Kondli constituencies, some voters complained that their names were on the electoral rolls and that they could not vote.

After voting party leaders expressed their opinion. Kejriwal said he is confident of a positive result for his party.[33] Vardhan claimed the BJP was "far ahead" of the INC and Aam Aadmi Party. "I can tell you very categorically that we are far ahead of Congress and the new entrant in Delhi politics. I am 100 per cent confident about our victory. I think nobody can make any dent in our vote bank. If there is any contest or fight, it is between the Congress and the new entrant (for the second place)." Dikshit said she had her "fingers crossed" on the outcome, while national party leader Sonia Gandhi said from her Nirman Bhavan polling station: "We will win."[6] At many places people with disabilities could not vote due to inaccessible polling booths.[34][35]

In all over 43,000 postal ballots were received, an increase from the last election's 1,600 postal ballots. The Delhi Election Commission announced that 2,000 Central Paramilitary Force and Delhi Police personnel were at the vote counting centres in the city on the day of the result announcement and CCTV cameras and live streaming of proceedings through web casting, two layers of security cover have been set at all the 14 counting centres. Delhi Chief Electoral officer Vijay Dev said: "Paramilitary force forms the inner circle of security of centres while adequate numbers of Delhi Police personnel will ensure safety from outside. Counting of votes will start from 8 AM tomorrow and during the first hour postal ballots will be counted."[36] The postal ballots were counted before the EVM votes.[37]

Exit polls showed the BJP in the lead to possibly form a government on its own, followed by the AAP and the incumbent INC in third place; others in general were fourth with the BSP following.[38]

Result

Notably, the INC's Chaudhary Prem Singh lost in the Ambedkar Nagar constituency, he held the seat since 1993 and had not lost a single election in 50 years; however Ashok Kumar of the AAP won the seat.[39] Incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dixit lost her New Delhi constituency seat to AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal by a margin that was double her total votes and was also less than 500 votes more than the BJP's Vijender Kumar;[40] she then submitted her resignation to Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung.[41]

 Summary of results of the Delhi Legislative Assembly election, 2013 [42]
Political party Flag Seats
Contested 		Won Net change
in seats 		% of
seats		 Votes Vote % Change in
vote %
Bharatiya Janata Party 66 31 Increase 8 44.29 26,04,100 33.07 Decrease 3
Aam Aadmi Party 69 28 New 40.0 23,22,330 29.49 New
Indian National Congress 70 8 Decrease 35 11.43 19,32,933 24.55 Decrease 15
Janata Dal (United) 27 1 Increase 1 1.43 68,818 0.87 New
Shiromani Akali Dal 4 1 Increase 1 1.42 71,757 1 N/A
Independents 225 1 0 1.42 10 N/A
Total 70 Voters 76,99,800 Turnout 66 %
  Aam Aadmi Party
  Indian National Congress

Reactions

Former Chief Minister Sheila Dixit said: "We accept our defeat and we will analyse what went wrong. We respect what the people of Delhi have decided and thank them for supporting us for last 15 years."[43]

Government formation

As no party won a majority of the 70 seats in the assembly,[44] if the necessary coalition government is not possible, Delhi would be put under president's rule until a new election is held within six months. However, the INC, BJP and AAP have all said they would not seek alliances with each other. The other option was to try to bring in independents; though since there are not enough, the media speculated that the other option would be lure away MLAs from another party (the AAP being the most likely in their analysis).[45]

As the BJP won 31 seats, while its alliance partner Shiromani Akali Dal won one seat, they gained a plurality and would have the first right to form a new government. However, they declined the offer from Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung to form a new government citing an inability to obtain majority. Jung then invited the Aam Aadmi Party to form the government.[46] Kejriwal wrote to BJP national leader Rajnath Singh and INC national leader Sonia Gandhi for clarification on 18 issues before seeking their support in forming a coalition.

On 9 December, Leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley wrote a blog suggesting that Congress should support AAP to form government in Delhi.[47] The BJP did not reply and the INC agreed to 16 of the 18 issues and offered its outside support. On 14 December, BJP Chief Ministerial candidate Dr. Harsh Vardhan asked AAP to take congress support and form the government.[48] The AAP then sought public opinion through a variety of mediums[49] such as via community meetings, text messages and pamphlets[50] about whether or not it should take the support of the INC.[49] AAP then formed a minority government with outside support from the INC.[51] In a letter to the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, the AAP did not however mention that it has the support of the INC.[52] Jung then sent his recommendations to President Pranab Mukherjee. Kejriwal was then sworn in as 7th Chief Minister of Delhi on 28 December, leading the youngest cabinet in Delhi ever.[53] M. S. Dhir was elected as the speaker of the legislative assembly on 3 January 2014.[54]

Amongst its first tasks, the AAP initiated a corruption response mechanism in a "durbar"; it also retracted the FDI in multi-brand retail that the previous government had sanctioned. Kejriwal said that though this would give consumers more options it has been shown that it "leads to loss of jobs to a very large extent. There is huge unemployment in Delhi and AAP government does not wish to increase this unemployment. Delhi is not prepared for FDI."[55] Yet he added that he was not against FDI by itself but that it needed to occur on a case-by-case basis.[56]

Government resignation

After 49 days, Kejriwal resigned as a chief minister following the failure of the introduction of Delhi's Jan Lokpal Bill in the assembly on 14 February 2014. President's rule was then imposed and the assembly was kept in suspended animation.[57] Fresh elections were scheduled for early 2015.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Election Commission announces poll dates for five states: highlights". NDTV. 4 October 2013.
  2. ↑ "Delhi Assembly Election Results 2013". Map of India. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  3. ↑ "Fulfill promises, Sheila Dikshit tells Aam Aadmi Party". NDTV. IANS. 23 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  4. ↑ "Will implement voters' right to reject candidates straight away: Election Commission". The Times of India. 27 September 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  5. ↑ "List of Poll Dates for 2013 Assembly Elections in five states". Biharpraprabha.com. Retrieved 5 October 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 "Delhi elections 2013: Record voter turnout in Delhi, 66% voting registered, EC says". The Times of India. 4 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  7. ↑ "‘Arvind Kejriwal is Aam Aadmi Party’s CM candidate’". Zee News. 5 October 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  8. ↑ "AAP ki Candidate List". Aam Aadmi Party. Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Left parties eyeing their share in Delhi polls". The Hindustan Times. 23 November 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  10. ↑ "Backed by Modi and RSS, Harsh Vardhan named BJP’s Delhi CM candidate". The Hindustan Times. 23 October 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  11. ↑ "BJP candidate list". Bharatiya Janata Party (Delhi unit). Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  12. ↑ "BSP to contest all 70 Assembly seats in Delhi: Mayawati". The Economic Times. 6 September 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  13. ↑ "DMDK releases second list of candidates for Delhi polls". Zee News. 8 November 2013. Retrieved 30 November 2013.
  14. ↑ "Delhi Assembly elections: BJP silent on CM candidate". Zee News. 19 September 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  15. ↑ "List of Indian National Congress (INC) Candidates for Delhi". Elections.in. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  16. ↑ "NCP to contest all 70 seats in Delhi polls". The Economic Times. 16 July 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  17. ↑ Neelam, Pandey (6 November 2013). "It's Dikshit against ex-BJP chief, Kejriwal in fight for New Delhi seat". The Hindustan Times. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  18. ↑ "Backed by Modi and RSS, Harsh Vardhan named BJP’s Delhi CM candidate". The Hindustan Times. Retrieved 30 November 2013.
  19. ↑ "Why BJP picked Harsh Vardhan for Delhi CM's race: word from Modi". The Hindustan Times. Retrieved 30 November 2013.
  20. ↑ "Happy with BJP's decision to nominate Vardhan: Goel". The Hindustan Times. Retrieved 30 November 2013.
  21. ↑ Mahendra Singh (11 December 2013). "Congress takes a leaf out of AAP book on manifestos". The Times of India. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "AAP to play spoiler in a close fight between Cong, BJP: pre-poll surveys". The Hindustan Times. 2 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  23. ↑ "India Today-ORG poll: BJP to retain Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, to wrest Delhi and Rajasthan from Congress". India Today. 7 November 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  24. ↑ "With 18 seats, AAP could be more than kingmaker in Delhi polls: Survey". First Post (India). 7 November 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  25. ↑ "Pre-poll survey: Hung Assembly in Delhi as AAP hits BJP, Congress hard". IBNLive. 30 October 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  26. 1 2 "AAP juggernaut continues to roll: ABP Nielsen". Business Standard. 15 October 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  27. 1 2 "BJP may return to power in Rajasthan, Hung assembly in Delhi: India TV-CVoter projection". India TV. 18 September 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  28. 1 2 "Delhi pre-poll survey: Congress to retain power as AAP sweeps up BJP votes". IBNLive. 19 September 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  29. ↑ "Delhi assembly polls: Surveys predict a hung House". The Times of India. 6 September 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  30. ↑ "AAP survey claims party ahead of others in Delhi". The Hindu. 19 September 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  31. ↑ http://www.business-standard.com/article/politics/ec-to-test-paper-audit-trail-system-during-dec-4-delhi-polls-113111700385_1.html
  32. ↑ http://www.firstpost.com/politics/delhi-elections-new-delhi-only-constituency-to-have-vvpat-machines-1265587.html
  33. ↑ "Confident of results: Arvind Kejriwal". Zee News. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  34. ↑ "Not a disabled friendly electoral system". The Hindu. 5 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  35. ↑ "Delhi election 2013: Disabled voters rip apart system on web". The Times of India. 6 December 2013.
  36. ↑ "Delhi polls: Elaborate security in place for vote counting". NDTV. 7 December 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  37. ↑ "Election Commission order: Postal ballots to be counted before EVM votes". DNA India. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  38. ↑ "Delhi election 2013: Poll survey puts Congress in third spot". The Times of India. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  39. ↑ "David and Goliath: Rookie AAP candidate defeats Cong leader who had not lost in 50 years". Hindustan Times. 8 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  40. ↑ "Assembly Elections December 2013 Results". Election Commission of India. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  41. ↑ "Sheila Dixit loses her seat to Kejriwal, submits resignation to Lt. Governor of Delhi". Bellevision.com. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  42. ↑ "Assembly Elections December 2013 Results". Election Commission of India. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
  43. ↑ http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sheila-dikshit-resigns-says-congress-will-analyse-what-went-wrong/1204985/
  44. ↑ "Assembly Elections December 2013 Results". ECI. Election Commission of India. Archived from the original on 12 December 2013.
  45. ↑ http://www.firstpost.com/politics/delhi-election-result-what-happens-if-there-is-a-hung-assembly-1273783.html
  46. ↑ http://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/lt-governor-invites-aap-to-discuss-government-formation/articleshow/27249740.cms
  47. ↑ ABP NEWS (2013-12-09), Arun Jaitley slams Aam Aadmi Party, retrieved 2016-12-24
  48. ↑ "Dr. Harsh Vardhan on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2016-12-24.
  49. 1 2 http://m.firstpost.com/politics/the-people-have-spoken-aap-to-rule-delhicongress-1298039.html?page=2. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  50. ↑ http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-12-18/news/45338283_1_arvind-kejriwal-leon-trotsky-direct-democracy
  51. ↑ "Kejriwal Becomes CM". The Economic Times. 23 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  52. ↑ "AAP explains its minority government". NDTV. 24 December 2013. Retrieved 24 December 2013.
  53. ↑ "Arvind Kejriwal, as Delhi Chief Minister, to head 'youngest-ever' Cabinet; check them out". The Financial Express. 25 December 2013. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
  54. ↑ http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/aaps-dhir-elected-delhi-assembly-speaker/article5534015.ece
  55. ↑ Mehra, Vishal Kant, Puja. "Delhi govt. withdraws approval for FDI in retail". The Hindu. Retrieved 2016-12-24.
  56. ↑ http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/01/aap-strikes-down-fdi-multi-brand-retail-201411471851252997.html
  57. ↑ "President’s Rule Imposed in Delhi as Assembly gets into Suspended Animation". IANS. news.biharprabha.com. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
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