Explained: Why Delhi Assembly Election is a vital one

New Delhi, Feb 08: The Delhi Assembly election has begun on Saturday morning, the national capital is having only half state with 70 assembly seats, still the Delhi Assembly Election has the involvement of eminent leaders of Centre even the Prime Minister himself.

The campaign for the assembly polls in the national capital made headlines with the leaders including Union Ministers making controversial speeches and raising incendiary slogans. This year Shaheen Bagh's anti-CAA protest following firing, and many others issues like the student protest at Jawahar Lal Nehru University (JNU), Jamia Millia Islamia University and the firing incidents were the major issues took place just before the Delhi assembly polls.

Amid this, some top leaders allegedly made provocative statements for which the Election Commission had to serve them notice.

Some of those leaders to whom EC served notice were Union minister Anurag Thakur, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP MP Parvesh Verma, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who got EC notice for promising setting up Mohalla Clinics on court premises.

The eminent political figures Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had also made controversial election speeches.

Rahul Gandhi's controversial election speech while accusing the Modi-BJP-government of having failed to deliver its promise of job creation has irked the BJP leaders where he said that the youth will hit PM Modi with 'danda' (sticks) in six-seven months making it difficult to step out of his home,

Contradicting, Rahul, PM Modi in his reply to the Motion of Thanks in the Lok Sabha, took a jibe at him and said some 'tubelights' take time to respond.

During campaigning both the parties BJP and the Congress to woo the voters also brought in its chief ministers from other states to Delhi rallies.

Theses leaders included Congress' leaders- Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh and Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, and BJP's leaders- UP CM Yogi Adityanath and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar of Bihar.

However, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) does not have a ruling presence outside Delhi but has some say in Punjab Assembly with 19 MLAs.

Delhi has sizeable population of groups that can influence the outcome of the assembly election.

Delhi has a mixed population of Punjabis form about 35 per cent, Purvanchalis (people from eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand) form about 30 per cent of population).

This makes the leaders on UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and Punjab vote aggregators in Delhi.

An assembly election often becomes a prestige battle for the party in power at the Centre because India's capital New Delhi is part of National Capital Territory of Delhi.

Delhi CM Kejriwal defeated both the Congress and the BJP in 2015 when Modi government was in power at the Centre with a single-party majority after 30 years.

Hence, the 2020 Delhi Assembly election is a similar prestige battle for the Modi-led-BJP government.
As Delhi houses the national capital, so it's chief minister gets more opportunity than the counterparts to meet foreign dignitaries. Moreover, the Delhi CM gets more attention in media and everywhere more often than any of the counterparts.