New Delhi: Voter turnout is expected to signal the fate of the three key players — the Congress, the BJP and the newly-formed Aam Aadmi Party — in Delhi on Wednesday.
Political stratgists believe that the low voter turnout has always given an edge to the Congress in the Delhi Assembly elections.
The low turnout is largely attributed to less participation by middle- and upper-middle class voters. It was only in the last municipal elections that the low turnout worked to the advantage of the BJP.
The 1993 assembly elections saw the maximum voter turnout of 65.75 per cent. The elections were swept by the BJP, led by veteran Madan Lal Khurana. While the BJP government was fighting the unprecedented hike in onion prices, its chances to retain Delhi were completely damaged, with just 49 per cent of the voters turning up in the 1998 elections.
To battle the onion crisis just before the elections, the BJP even replaced the then chief minister Saheb Singh Verma with senior party leader Sushma Swaraj.
But Delhiites gave a clear mandate to the Congress-led by Sheila Dikshit. In the 2003 assembly elections, the turnout further slumped to 47 per cent.
This time, the Congress could manage to win the elections on the strength of its Muslim and dalit vote bank. The heavy turnout in the jhuggi clusters also helped the party retain its hold over the national capital.
Even as the electorate strength had increased from 58.5 lakh in 1993 to 1.07 crore in 2008, the middle class did not realise its collective power in a place like Delhi where they form the maximum chunk of voters.
“The Dikshit government’s poll sops to regularise a large number of unauthorised colonies helped the party to wrest its power in Delhi again in 2008,” BJP supporter Jagdish Mamgain said.
What is quite surprising is the fact that as many as 18 constituencies have witnessed 10 per cent fall in turnout between the 1993 and 2003 elections.
In all the four assembly elections, the highest difference has been recorded in the Rajouri Garden constituency where it dropped from 66.25 in 1993 to just 37.95 per cent in the 2004 assembly byelection.
The second highest difference was recorded in Baljeet Nagar where turnout of 61.64 per cent fell to 35.72 per cent in the last assembly polls.
This time, the Congress, BJP and the AAP are focusing more on the 25 seats which were decided by a margin of less than 5,000 in the last elections. Of the 25 seats, as many as 10 were decided by a margin of even less than 1,000 votes.
The BJP and the AAP have been making desperate appeals to Delhiites to turn up in large numbers on the voting day.
“Both the parties know they will gain only if the middle class turns up in large numbers,” a local Congress leader said.
BJP leader Sushma Swaraj even appealed to the party’s well-wishers across the country to contact their known people in Delhi to vote for her party.
AAP founder Arvind Kejriwal claimed that Delhiites, affected by inflation and corruption, would turn up in large numbers to put an end to the 15-year-old “misrule” of the Dikshit regime.
Even BJP chief ministerial candidate Harsh Vardhan ecoched similar sentiments. “People are fed up with the Congress.
They just want change,” he told this newspaper.
But combative Dikshit termed her rivals claims as “misleading” and a sign of their “nervousness.” “Even if there is a huge turnout, we are bound to win,” she declared.
Even the election commission had launched a high end campaign to make people aware about their voting rights. The Commission had been making repeated appeals to the electorate to come out in large numbers on the voting day.
The Commission will also keep a tab on about 14 lakh voters who could not be traced at their respective addresses. To check the bogus voting, about 80 % people have already been provided with their photo-voter slips.
All the three states —Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarg and Rajasthan recently witnessed heavy turnouts. Now, it is the turn of 1.19 crore Delhiites to demonstrate their voting rights.
