As the voting for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will start on Sunday, the BJP is looking to retain its clout over MCD in the polls, whereas the AAP is looking forward to repeat the success of Delhi Assembly elections in MCD and the Congress is looking forward to regain its turf over the years. The BJP has claimed to win at least 150-200 seats while the AAP claimed to win over 200 seats. The political parties have appealed the people to vote for the MCD on Sunday.
On Saturday, political parties and their candidates remained busy in booth management and ensuring party workers to each polling booths. The candidates were also busy in chalking strategy to bring out people to cast their votes.
In the high decibel 13-day campaigning, the BJP leaders claimed victory in the election for 250 MCD wards on December 4 and mounted an all-out attack on the AAP and its convener Arvind Kejriwal over corruption. AAP leaders led by Arvind Kejriwal attacked the BJP with equal vigour, raising issues such as landfills in the city and "corruption" during the saffron party's 15-year-rule at the municipal corporations.
The AAP in its manifesto also promised waste management and a solution to landfills. It also promised beautification of parks among other promises. Kejriwal also promised to make the MCD corruption-free and solve vehicle-parking problems.
Earlier this year, the BJP-ruled Centre unified the three corporations in the national capital into MCD reducing the number of wards from 272 to 250.
BJP national vice president and incharge of the party's Delhi unit Baijayant Panda claimed that the city voters will vote for development. "The BJP is going to secure a comfortable majority in the MCD," Panda said.
Kejriwal had earlier claimed during the campaigning that the BJP will not secure more than 20 wards. The three main parties have fielded candidates in all the 250 wards, with 1,349 in the fray in all. As many as 1.45 crore people are eligible to cast their votes. The Congress, which has suffered back-to-back drubbing in the national capital since 2015 in parliamentary, assembly and municipal corporations polls, will try to redeem itself with a notable performance this time.
The Congress has promised RO water purifiers to poor, waiver of due house tax, and day-boarding at MCD-run schools. The Congress has also promised to resolve landfill issues in Delhi related to waste disposal.
Meanwhile, the infighting in Congress spilled over to Delhi ahead of the MCD polls as former CM Sheila Dikshit's son Sandeep Dikshit hit out at his party colleague Devender Yadav. Reacting to a photo of a press conference by Delhi Congress leaders on Friday, Dikshit objected to his presence on the stage.
According to the former Lok Sabha MP, Yadav did his best to humiliate his mother, a three-time Chief Minister of Delhi, when she was alive. Yadav served as an MLA from the Badli constituency and is serving as the AICC in-charge for Uttarakhand.
In the 2017 municipal corporation polls, the BJP trounced AAP and Congress, winning 181 of 270 wards on which polls were held.
The AAP in its debut civic body polls won 48 wards while the Congress bagged 30.
Among the other parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded 132 candidates while the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen headed by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi is contesting in 15 wards.
The Nationalist Congress Party has fielded candidates in 26 wards and Janata Dal (United) has 22 candidates in fray.