Yellow and blue balloons, party banners, flags fluttered at the AAP’s headquarter on Wednesday morning. Jubilant party workers were seen distributing sweets, dancing to drum beats with patriotic songs blaring through loudspeakers no sooner the results of the MCD polls started coming out in favour of their candidates.
Songs such as ‘Aisa Des Hai Mera’, ‘Hindustani’ along with the theme track of the AAP for the MCD elections, ‘MCD Mei Bhi Kejriwal’ were heard at the party head office situated at Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. Hoardings with the tag line of the party “Ache honge 5 saal, MCD mein bhi Kejriwal” were displayed across roads leading to the party’s office along with numerous yellow buntings with the AAP’s logo in blue hovering prominently.
As the results of each ward were announced by the State Election Commission (SEC) over the day, the victorious candidates were seen reaching the party office with sweets to celebrate the win with party workers, supporters and their leaders.
Prominent AAP leaders including Gopal Rai, Atishi, Saurabh Bhardwaj and Durgesh Pathak, started gathering at the party office even as the counting progressed, expressing their joy and meeting the winning candidates.
After the final results were announced by the SEC, around 3 PM, AAP supremo and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal along with Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Bhagwant Mann, Raghav Chadha and other senior members of the party reached the office to address hundreds of AAP workers gathered there, celebrating the party’s victory.
The AAP workers welcomed the senior party leaders with continuous chanting of slogans such as “MCD Mei Bhi Kejriwal”, “Kejriwal Ki Sarkar, Kejriwal Ka Parshad” etc.
The mood at the BJP office, too, was jubilant as it found solace in the fact that despite the anti-incumbency factor, the party showed good performance by increasing its vote share.
Several senior BJP leaders including Adesh Gupta, Ashish Sood, Kuljeet Singh Chahal, Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga were present at the party office to greet the winning candidates and the workers. The candidates were seen visiting the BJP office to meet the senior leaders and take their blessings. Back-to-back party meetings were going on to chalk out the strategy after the final results were declared.
Even as the AAP scored a victory in the MCD elections, the saffron party leaders exhibited confidence that they would elect the Mayor of the unified civic body.
Praveen Shankar Kapoor, BJP spokesperson said, “This is not a victory for the AAP, as they did not clean sweep the polls even after the saffron party faced 15-year-old anti-incumbency factor.”
“The people of the national Capital have rejected the AAP, as this is the first election that party scored around 50 per cent of total seats. It was a neck-to-neck competition.”The Congress party office, which scored minimal in civic elections, was deserted.