The results of the crucial, high-stakes election to the 70-member Delhi Assembly will be declared today following the counting of votes.
The counting of votes for 70 Assembly constituencies will take place at 21 centres across Delhi, which will get underway from 8 am today.
To keep people updated about the Delhi polls results, the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s official website will have real-time information about them. The results will also be available on the EC’s Voter Helpline App.
“Counting of votes will start at 8 am and all the results should be out by 1 pm tomorrow,” said an EC official.
In the wake of the polling on 8 February, all exit polls had projected a thumping victory for the ruling Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), predicting that it would bag more than 50 seats. In 2015 Delhi Assembly polls, the AAP had swept Delhi, bagging 67 seats.
The AAP’s rival parties in this election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, have rejected the exit polls, with the BJP claiming that it would win the polls. The Congress claimed that it would improve its position in the national capital. In the 2015 polls, the BJP and the Congress had managed to win three seats and zero seat respectively.
More than 24 hours after the polling in Delhi, the EC had announced that the final voter turnout was 62.59 per cent ~ 4.88 per cent less than the 2015 polls turnout.
The AAP has said it would deploy its volunteers outside the 30 strong rooms where electronic voting machines (EVMs) have been kept ~ a move aimed at keeping a tight vigil on the machines till the counting day.
The announcement came after Sanjay Singh alleged while sharing videos on his Twitter account, that EVMs were being moved in an “unauthorised manner” after polling concluded on Saturday.
The EC has rejected these charges and suspicion as unfounded and baseless.
The 8 February polling capped weeks of bitter, fractious and polarising campaigning in the Delhi election, which was marked by the trading of allegations and counter-allegations between the parties, brazen “hate” speeches, and divisive politics. It even witnessed violence and firing at anti-CAA-NRC protest sites at Jamia and Shaheen Bagh in Southeast Delhi.
The EC was at times forced to take some action as it gave leaders like Union minister Anurag Thakur, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, and BJP MP Parvesh Verma a slap on the wrist over their “hate” remarks.
While the AAP strongly projected the “development accomplishments” of the Kejriwal-led government over the last five years, the BJP aggressively made its staunch opposition to the Shaheen Bagh protests as its key election plank. The Congress, which remained virtually invisible on the campaign trail, highlighted the unemployment issue to target both the AAP and the BJP.