All eyes in Capital on today’s MCD results

Starting 8am, the fate of 1,349 candidates will be decided at 42 counting locations where designated personnel will tally 56,000 electronic voting machines, said an official from the state election commission.

Seven million votes across 250 wards in the Capital will be counted on Wednesday to determine the winner of the civic polls, marking the end of a fierce month-long battle between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party for control of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

Officials on the eve of counting day. (Hindustan Times)

Starting 8am, the fate of 1,349 candidates will be decided at 42 counting locations where designated personnel will tally 56,000 electronic voting machines, said an official from the state election commission. Tight security arrangements are in place in strong rooms at various government buildings and counting centers to ensure smooth counting of votes.

“For the purpose of counting, the commission has set up 42 counting centres across the city. 68 election observers have already been deployed by the commission under whose supervision the counting of votes shall be carried out by the returning officers in the presence of candidates or their representatives. Further, the commission has also deployed 136 engineers from ECIL at these counting centres to attend to any technical issues regarding the EVMs which may arise during counting of votes,” the SEC said in a statement.

The high-stakes battle largely centred on a face-off between the BJP, which has ruled the city’s three erstwhile civic bodies for 15 years, and the AAP, which is hoping to wrest control of MCD and deepen its control over what is arguably India’s most important Union Territory. The December 4 polls were the first time in a decade when people voted for a unified civic body. Exit polls have predicted a convincing victory for the AAP and a reduced seat tally for the BJP, with the Congress a distant third with only a handful of wards.

With an annual budget of ₹15,200 crore and around 150,000 employees, MCD is usually the first port of call for Delhi’s 20 million residents for registering births, deaths and marriages, issuing trade licences and permissions, clearing garbage, overseeing primary education, providing health care services, maintaining colony roads and running crematoriums.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal exuded confidence. “I want to congratulate the people of Delhi. People have once again reposed their faith in AAP. I hope the results are same [to what has been predicted by exit polls],” Kejriwal said at an event in the Delhi Assembly.

His deputy Manish Sisodia said the people of Delhi proved that there was no scam in Delhi and all allegations were false, referring to allegations of financial irregularities in the now-scrapped excise policy.

Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta said Aam Aadmi Party leaders are in a habit of giving clean chit to themselves without waiting for a word from investigative agency and Sisodia was doing the same.

“Manish Sisodia should remember that electoral victory does not absolve him of corruption charges. After the investigation is over Sisodia will be in jail. BJP is going to do much better than what the exit polls have predicted and we expect to comfortably cross the half way mark. We have had a good campaign and our feedback of polling day gives us reason to be sure of a good performance,” said Gupta, who being the Delhi unit chief of the BJP, helmed the election campaign and preparations in consultation with other party leaders.

All BJP candidates, along with their counting agents, will reach the counting centres by 7am, Gupta said.

Delhi Congress leader Anil Bharadwaj said party candidates and their representatives will be stationed at counting centres. “This time the vote share of Congress is likely to be highest than what it has been in various elections in the last five years; and definitely when the vote share increases the number of seats will also increase. The BJP and the AAP misused power, carried out a delimitation, names of several voters were deleted to win the polls. I firmly believe that the exit polls will fall flat,” said Bharadwaj.

A victory will deepen the AAP’s political roots in Delhi and boost its plans to expand on the national political stage. For the BJP, which has not won an assembly election in Delhi for 25 years, the civic bodies represented a significant chunk of governance power. For the Congress, the municipal polls were yet another challenge to remain relevant in the city’s politics.

A State Election Commission (SEC) official said on the condition of anonymity that 56,000 EVMs were sealed after voting was completed and securely transported to 42 strong rooms across the capital by district authorities. The EVMs were kept under a three-tier security mechanism and will be opened following all prescribed procedures in the presence of officials as well as representatives of the candidates.

“All the locations where the counting of votes will be taken up will have three-layer security and counting process will be carried out under CCTV cameras with the postal ballots being counted first,” the SEC official added.

Among the 14.5 million eligible voters, a turnout of around 50% was recorded on Sunday. On May 22, 2022, the Union government decided to dissolve Delhi’s erstwhile municipal corporations for the northern, southern and eastern parts of the Capital, and reunified them into a single MCD, whittling down the number of wards from 272 to 250 in the process.

AAP leader Durgesh Pathak said that candidates and party workers will be camping at the counting centres from the morning. Sisodia also exuded confidence.

“MCD set to witness AAP’s landslide victory, this mandate will be a signal from Delhi to the whole country that AAP is a fiercely honest party. BJP levelled fake allegations against me, and launched a witch-hunt targeting Satyendar Jain. The people of Delhi have proved with their mandate that there was no scam in Delhi and all the allegations of BJP are false, motivated by conspiracy and dirty politics,” he said, referring to the BJP’s campaign that levelled charges of corruption at the AAP.

Sisodia took a swipe at the BJP’s election campaign which saw at least 15 Union ministers and six chief ministers hitting the streets of the Capital. “BJP fielded many of its CMs and union ministers to campaign against AAP, but the public did not fall for their traps and completely rejected BJP’s politics of dishonesty,” he added.