After garnering 28 seats in an impressive debut, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came close to scripting political history by finishing second in 20 of the 70-seat Assembly, losing some of them with only a narrow margin. Stunning many political heavyweights, the greenhorn conceded, out of those 20, only two seats to the Congress while losing the remaining to the BJP.
While AAP’s candidate from RK Puram, Shazia Ilmi, missed the Assembly bus by a mere 326 votes to BJP’s Anil Kumar Sharma, it lost Sultanpur Majra seat to Congress’ Jai Kishan by a little over 1,100 votes.The crucial Rajinder Nagar seat saw Transport Minister Ramakant Goswami finishing with the third spot and the AAP losing to the BJP by nearly 1,800 votes.
In Bijwasan, Dwarka, Kalkaji and Tri Nagar each, the party lost by a margin of 2,000-3,000 votes. In South Delhi, the new entrant notched up Greater Kailash, Kasturba Nagar, Sangam Vihar, Ambedkar Nagar, Deoli, and gave a close fight to BJP’s Parvesh Sahib Singh, who toppled Speaker Yoganand Shastri from Mehrauli. The AAP finished second here losing by a margin of 4,564 votes.
Apart from 45-year-old bureaucrat-turned politician Kejriwal, this election saw the AAP throwing many giant killers. Chiefly among them is 53-year-old Ashok Kumar from Ambedkar Nagar, who upstaged Congress’ Prem Singh, who holds a Guinness Record for winning polls since 1958 each time contesting from the same constituency and the same political party.
Twenty six-year-old Prakash in Deoli has set a record of sorts by garnering one of the biggest votes for AAP (51,646) defeating the BJP (34,538) and the Congress (26,140) by a huge margin.