If an internal assessment by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is to be believed, the party’s vote share in the coming Lok Sabha elections is likely to be 41%, up from 29.3% in last year’s Delhi assembly polls.
But despite the high vote share, it is likely to win only four of the seven Lok Sabha seats from Delhi, which goes to polls on April 10.
The assessment states that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to garner 33% vote share (down from 34.3% in the assembly elections) while the Congress is likely to get just 19% (way below 25.01% in 2013 assembly polls), a source said. The AAP’s assessment—finalised earlier this week —claims it would have a smooth sailing in four seats, one will be a hard fight and the party is not gaining much ground in two seats.
The winning four seats are New Delhi (AAP candidate Ashish Khetan), Chandni Chowk (Ashutosh), East Delhi (Raj Mohan Gandhi) and West Delhi (Jarnail Singh). The party claims there will be a tie between AAP’s Rakhi Birla and the BJP’s Udit Raj in the Northwest Delhi seat.
The survey also shows that Banias, Sikhs, Muslims, SCs and Yadav communities are hugely in favour of AAP; while there is a tie between the AAP and BJP for Poorvanchali votes. The survey also found that Delhi’s rural voters and the Jat community favoured BJP.
{{/usCountry}}The survey also shows that Banias, Sikhs, Muslims, SCs and Yadav communities are hugely in favour of AAP; while there is a tie between the AAP and BJP for Poorvanchali votes. The survey also found that Delhi’s rural voters and the Jat community favoured BJP.
{{/usCountry}}The BJP had won 31 seats and got 34.37% vote share during the 2013 assembly election; the AAP won 28 seats with 29.3% vote share while the three-term then ruling Congress had won just eight seats (25.01% vote share).
The AAP findings also claim that top leader Arvind Kejriwal was still a preferred choice for the chief minister’s post with 41% favouring him. 22% people favoured the BJP’s Harsh Vardhan and 7% favoured his party colleague Vijay Goel.
The Congress’ Ajay Maken, Arvinder Singh, Kapil Sibal and Haroon Yusuf polled so few votes as CM candidate that all four added up to just 11%.
When asked, the party did not comment on the findings of the survey but just called it as an internal assessment. “We are not going public with the findings just because it was done by our volunteers,” said a spokesperson.