New Delhi: The high-stakes Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) poll will be held today, December 4, with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) looking to wrest power from the BJP, while the saffron party is eying its fourth consecutive time at the civic body. The Congress, which has suffered a back-to-back drubbing in the national capital since 2015 in parliamentary, assembly and municipal corporations polls, will try to redeem itself with a notable performance this time.
In the high-decibel 13-day campaigning, the BJP leaders claimed victory in the election for 250 MCD wards on December 4 and mounted an all-out attack on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its convener Arvind Kejriwal over corruption.
AAP leaders led by Kejriwal attacked the BJP with equal vigour, raising issues such as landfills in the city and “corruption” during the saffron party’s 15-year rule at the municipal corporations.
Earlier this year, the BJP-ruled Centre unified the three corporations in the national capital into the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), reducing the number of wards from 272 to 250.
BJP national vice president and in charge of the party’s Delhi unit Vaijayanti Panda claimed that the city voters will vote for development.
“The BJP is going to secure a comfortable majority in the MCD,” Panda said.
The AAP leadership has said it will win over 200 wards. Kejriwal had earlier claimed during the campaigning that the BJP will not secure more than 20 wards.
The three main parties have fielded candidates in all 250 wards, with 1,349 in the fray in all. As many as 1.45 crore people are eligible to cast their votes. In the 2017 municipal corporation polls, the BJP trounced the AAP and the Congress, winning 181 of the 270 wards in which polls were held.
The AAP in its debut civic body polls won 48 wards while the Congress bagged 30.
A day ahead of the poll, senior AAP leader and Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia accused the BJP of turning the national capital into a “mound of garbage”.
“The BJP was in power in MCD for 15 years and it turned Delhi into a capital of garbage mounds and stray animals. This time, people will choose Arvind Kejriwal to make Delhi clean and beautiful,” he said.
BJP leaders Sambit Patra and Union minister Anurag Thakur through back-to-back press conferences slammed the AAP and Kejriwal over corruption issues.
Among the other parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded 132 candidates while the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen headed by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi is contesting in 15 wards.
The Nationalist Congress Party has fielded candidates in 26 wards and Janata Dal (United) has 22 candidates in the fray.
The results will be announced on December 7.
(With PTI Inputs)
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