Manoj Tiwari Offers To Quit After Delhi Polls Debacle, BJP Top Brass Says No Need Right Now: Sources

Delhi Assembly Election Results 2020: Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari has offered to quit after the debacle in the state polls, sources said on Wednesday. The insiders in the party say that the BJP top brass has refused to accept Tiwari’s resignation. ‘No need right now,’ the BJP leadership reportedly told Tiwari. In the results announced on Tuesday, the BJP won eight seats. The AAP on the other hand registered thumping victory with 62 seats. Taking full responsibility of his party's poor show in the Delhi Assembly polls, Tiwari on Tuesday said his future role in the party is an internal matter.

Out of the eight assembly seats the BJP won, three were under Tiwari's Lok Sabha constituency North East Delhi. The party won four seats in East Delhi constituency represented by BJP MP Gautam Gambhir and one in South Delhi represented by party MP Ramesh Bidhuri. In the remaining four Lok Sabha constituencies, the party was routed by the AAP. Each of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi comprise 10 assembly segments. Tiwari, who fought the Lok Sabha elections as a Samajwadi Party candidate in 2009 against Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur, joined the BJP ahead of assembly polls in 2013.

Tiwari had asserted that his party will win more than 48 seats in the 70-member Assembly and form the government. Addressing the media, Tiwari: “I thank the people of Delhi. I thank our party workers for their hard work, they've done a lot. I accept the mandate of people of Delhi and congratulate Arvind Kejriwal. I hope he will perform well as per the expectations of the people.”

On the voting day on February 8, Tiwari had also made a prediction on Twitter. In a tweet, Tiwari had said that his party will win "48 seats" and form a government in the city. Tiwari tweeted that all the exit polls will fail and asked his detractors to save his tweet.

The election, largely seen as a battle between the AAP and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which went aggressive during the high-octane campaign was held on Saturday, sealing the fate of 672 candidates -- 593 men and 79 women. Nearly 24 hours after the polling ended in Delhi, the Election Commission on Sunday announced that the final voter turnout was 62.59 per cent, five per cent less than 2015, and asserted that it followed the laid down process to compile data, after the AAP questioned the "delay".