BJP sweeps Delhi, AAP finishes second (Roundup)

New Delhi, May 16 (IANS) The BJP Friday wrested all seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital from the Congress, defeating its nearest rival, the AAP, by a margin of over one lakh votes in each of them.

The Congress finished third.

The difference in votes between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party ranged from 106,802 in North West Delhi to 268,586 in West Delhi.

For the BJP, the maximum of 651,395 votes was netted by Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma, son of late former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma, in West Delhi. He defeated AAP's Jarnail Singh who polled 382,809 votes and Congress' Mahabal Mishra

BJP's Delhi unit president Harsh Vardhan, who contested from Chandni Chowk, got the least number of votes among seven BJP candidates: 436,468.

But he defeated AAP's former journalist turned politician Ashutosh by over 1.35 lakh votes as well as Law and Communications Minister Kapil Sibal, who had won twice from Chandni Chowk but now ended up in the third position.

Congress candidate Ajay Maken finished at the third spot in New Delhi where BJP's Meenakshi Lekhi won, polled 453,350 votes. Aam Aadmi Party's Ashish Khetan came second, receiving 290,642 votes.

The New Delhi seat also witnessed the lowest margin between the AAP and Congress at 107,749 votes. Maken secured 182,893 votes.

AAP's Rakhi Birla, who was a minister in the 49-day AAP government in Delhi, also lost to BJP's Udit Raj in Northwest Delhi by a margin of over one lakh votes with Krishna Tirath of Congress coming in third with 157,968 votes.

The difference in votes between the AAP and Congress was at its highest here at 365,590 votes. Birla got 523,058 votes and Tirath 157,468.

The story was similar in South Delhi where BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri won by a margin of over a lakh votes followed by AAP's Devinder Sehrawat who got 390,980 votes while Congress again finished last with its candidate Ramesh Kumar polling 125,213 votes.

In East Delhi, BJP's Maheish Girri led over AAP's Rajmohan Gandhi and Congress' Sandeep Dixit, son of former chief minister Sheila Dikshit.

Girri polled 572,202 votes followed by Gandhi who gote 381,739 votes and Diskhit who came third with 203,290 votes.

In Northeast Delhi, BJP's Manoj Tiwari was at the first place with 596,125 votes and AAP's Anand Kumar came in at second with 452,091 votes. Ajai Parkash Agarwal was at the third spot polling just over 2 lakh votes.

In 2009, the Congress had bagged all seven seats.

The Lok Sabha trends appeared to reiterate the message of the 2013 assembly elections when the BJP finished at the top bagging 31 of the 70 seats, leaving 28 for the Aam Aadmi Party and eight for the Congress.

AAP's Chandni Chowk candidate Ashuthosh congratulated the BJP. "We have come out as the second largest party in Delhi."

Added party leader Arvind Kejriwal, who lost from Varanasi against BJP's Narendra Modi: "This is a good beginning for AAP. No one thought about it."

"The results in Delhi have been disappointing," he added.

Meanwhile, an ecstatic BJP Delhi chief Harsh Vardhan said that the credit for the victory goes to Modi and the hardwork of the party's workers.

"This is a victory of the people of India and the credit goes to Modi ji and our workersa people wanted change and have got it," he said.

IANS