Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia (Photo Credit: PTI)
New Delhi:
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia won the Patparganj seat in East Delhi after a tough fight against BJP's Ravinder Singh Negi. After trailing initially, Sisodia wrested the seat in final rounds of counting. He got 70,163 votes and defeated his closest rival - Ravinder Singh Negi of BJP- by 3,207 votes.
The Patparganj Assembly seat is one of the 70 Assembly constituencies in Delhi. The seat falls in the East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency in eastern Delhi. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has fielded deputy CM Manish Sisodia from the seat for the third time. The BJP and Congress have fielded Ravi Negi and Laxman Rawat, respectively.
AAP senior leader Sanjay Singh also said that by giving a “massive mandate”, people of the national capital have said that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is not a terrorist but a staunch nationalist. Despite the BJP using all its might to wrest power in the national capital, the “son of Delhi” won, he said.
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is leading on 57 seats while the BJP on 13, according to Election Commission (EC). “The two crore families of Delhi have now said that their son Arvind Kejriwal is not a terrorist but a staunch nationalist. I salute the people of Delhi from (for) giving AAP such a massive mandate,” Singh said in a tweet.
The AAP leader was referring to remarks made by BJP MP Parvesh Verma at a poll rally. Verma had called Kejriwal a “terrorist” over his alleged support to an anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protest in south Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh.
“Despite BJP leaders putting all their force behind it (election campaign), the son of Delhi won. Amit Shah has been shown that the son of Delhi has won and people of Delhi have voted for development and progress,” said Singh, referring to Kejriwal.
Singh was addressing party workers at the AAP headquarters here. According to EC’s website, Kejriwal was leading from his New Delhi constituency. He reached the party office as the counting got underway. Counting centres are spread across 21 locations, spanning 70 constituencies. Polling for the 70-member Delhi Assembly was held on Saturday.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia is trailing with over thousand votes.
According to Election Commission, AAP candidate Manish Sisodia is leading from Patparganj with only 74 votes.
The BJP has fielded Ravi Negi against Sisodia. Negi is BJP’s Vinod Nagar Mandal’s (ward) president and originally hails from Uttarakhand.
In the 2013 Assembly polls, Sisodia won from here by a margin of nearly 12,000 votes, defeating BJP’s Nakul Bhardwaj. In the February 2015 elections, he defeated BJP’s Vinod Kumar Binny by a margin of over 29,000 votes.
