AAP coasts to victory in Rajinder Nagar

The bypoll was necessitated after the sitting AAP MLA Raghav Chadha vacated the seat after his nomination to the Rajya Sabha. With the AAP retaining the seat on Sunday, there will be no change in the seat arithmetic in the Delhi assembly.

The Aam Aadmi Party candidate Durgesh Pathak won the Rajinder Nagar assembly seat defeating his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rival Rajesh Bhatia by more than 11,000 votes in the bypolls to the seat results of which were announced on Sunday.

Aam Admi Party (AAP) workers celebrate party candidate Durgesh Pathak's victory in Rajinder Nagar by-polls, outside Aam Admi Party office, in New Delhi. (HT Photo)

The bypoll was necessitated after the sitting AAP MLA Raghav Chadha vacated the seat after his nomination to the Rajya Sabha. With the AAP retaining the seat on Sunday, there will be no change in the seat arithmetic in the Delhi assembly. The AAP will continue to dominate the House with 62 members of the total 70 seats. The BJP holds the rest of the eight seats.

According to the results announced by the election commission, the AAP got 55.78% of the votes polled, the BJP got 39.91% and the Congress came a distant third with a patry 2.79% of the votes.

In absolute terms, Pathak polled 40,319 votes, Bhatia got 28,851 and the Congress’ Prem Lata managed only 2,014 votes. As many as 71,737 votes were found valid during counting. Five hundred and forty six people chose NOTA.

The constituency recorded a turnout of 43.75% when polling was held on Thursday.

Delhi chief minister and national convener of the AAP Arvind Kejriwal thanked the people of Rajinder Nagar, saying that they had defeated dirty politics and supported the good work (of AAP). “Heartfelt gratitude to the people of Rajinder Nagar. I am grateful for this unfathomable affection and love from the people of Delhi. This inspires us to work harder to serve them better. The people defeated BJP’s dirty politics and appreciated our good work,” Kejriwal tweeted after the results were announced.

Since morning a group of AAP supporters had gathered outside the counting centres carrying the cutouts of Arvind Kejriwal and Durgesh Pathak. Pathak took the lead since the count began. Though Bhatia seemed to have cut down the margin after a few rounds, but then soon the result became evident, leading to celebrations by the AAP supporters. A majority of them were local residents from the nearby JJ clusters and low-income group settlements. There were about two dozen BJP supporters who were waiting for the result near the Government Industrial Training Centre, Pusa, where counting was going on. However, by afternoon, only a few were left.

Chief electoral officer Ranbir Singh said the election was conducted in a peaceful, free and fair manner and the counting of votes was done in a foolproof manner. “The winner (Durgesh Pathak) was given a certificate by the election official,” said Singh.

After his victory, Pathak thanked Arvind Kejriwal for his support and dedicated his victory to him. “This is his victory. This is the victory of progress he has brought in Delhi. I want to thank the people of Rajinder Nagar. I am grateful to each and every voter who voted for the AAP. This is their victory. I want to thank all the AAP workers who were involved in these elections and worked tirelessly,” Pathak said.

Raghav Chadha, who last held the seat, also thanked the voters in the constituency. “I thank all the constituents of Rajinder Nagar assembly constituency for once again showering their love and blessing on AAP. Today’s by poll victory is an affirmation of the ‘Kejriwal Model of Governance.’ Best wishes to my brother Durgesh Pathak, as I pass on the baton to him,” Chadha tweeted.

Rajesh Bhatia said it was a “Rajesh Bhatia versus Arvind Kejriwal election”. “I thank the people who voted for me. I will continue working like their MLA and address the problems they bring to me,” Bhatia said.

Delhi BJP MLA Ajay Mahawar, who was the party in-charge for the bypoll, said the party leaders and the party organization worked hard during electioneering and they got more votes than what that the party got in the 2020 election. “But the result is unexpected. We will conduct an analysis to find out the reasons for the defeat,” Mahawar said.

Ranjit Sharma, a resident from Pandav Nagar area in the constituency, said since the MLA is from the ruling party, he will hopefully escalate the problems to the government and get them addressed.

Virat Kapoor, a resident of Loha Mandi, said, “We voted for AAP because it is the ruling party and because of the promises made by Kejriwal. We expect the work on water crisis and the chocked sewer to start soon.”