Lotus blooms at Rajouri Garden, Kejri hits a wall

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) registered a resounding victory in the Rajouri Garden bypoll on Thursday, defeating its nearest rival Congress by a margin of about 15,000 votes, and leaving far behind the ruling party Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which finished a poor third.

The results have come as a huge boost for the BJP, a mere 10 days ahead of the upcoming Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections and also reflected that Congress is gaining ground in the city and snatching its vote bank from AAP.

The biggest takeaway of the by-election is not the victory of BJP but the decimation of AAP in the seat on which was last won by the party. The seat had fallen vacant after AAP leader Jarnail Singh quit as MLA early this year to contest the Punjab Assembly poll aagainst SAD patron Prakash Singh Badal.

This result could not have come at a worse time for Arvind Kejriwal which is still struggling to get over the humiliating defeats in the recently held Punjab and Goa Assembly elections. Also, AAP not only ended up third in the bypoll but its candidate Harjeet Singh also had the humiliation of losing his security deposit by securing just 10,243 …read more