Delhi Duel: Will Chauhan and Singhal's records be eclipsed?

New Delhi, Nov 21 (UNI) Records, they say, are meant to be broken. Every single vote counts in elections. Even a solitary vote sometimes can make or mar a candidate's political future.

As far as the Delhi Assembly elections go, the highest margin of victory is recorded in the name of Urban Development Minister Rajkumar Chauhan, while the narrowest gap of defeat till date is of Industry Minister Mangat Ram Singhal.

The Delhi polls will take place on November 29 and counting of votes will be taken up on December 8. Only time will tell whether the existing records will be broken.

In 1993, former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh trounced S C L Vats of the Congress on the Shalimar Bagh assembly seat by a margin of 21,770. While Singh polled 40,077 votes, Vats ended up getting 18,307.

In the same year, Mr Singhal cut a sorry figure when he lost to his main rival Jaiprakash Yadav just by a margin of 40 votes.

Congress' Surendar Kumar, in 1998, routed an Independent candidate from the Bawana assembly seat by a margin of 25,698 votes.

Kumar netted 40,241 votes, while Om Prakash(Ind) polled 14,543 votes.

On the Rohtas Nagar seat in the same year, BJP's Alok Kumar beat Radhey Shyam Khanna of the Congress by a thin gap of only 167 votes.

In 2003, Rajkumar Chauhan from Mangolpuri seat clobbered BSP's Megh Singh by a margin as wide as 30,315 votes. Chauhan got 39,147 votes. Singh could gross only 8,832 ballot papers.

But in that year, Rohit Manchanda of the Congress lost to BJP's Vijay Jolly on the Saket seat by a margin of 121 votes.

Jolly polled 17,323 votes but Manchanda secured 17,202 votes.

This time round, Jolly is pitted against Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on the New Delhi Assembly seat as his earlier seat Saket fell victim to the delimitation exercise.

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