Delhi polls: Election Commission to announce assembly election schedule today

The Election Commission of India (ECI) will hold a press conference on Tuesday to announce the schedule for the upcoming Delhi Legislative Assembly election. The press conference is scheduled for 2:00 pm at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.

The Delhi election is likely to be a three-cornered contest, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) exerting pressure on the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is looking for a fourth consecutive term. The Congress, on the other hand, looks to make a comeback, having lost power in Delhi to an upstart AAP in 2013.

The AAP formed a minority government after the 2013 assembly election in Delhi as the voters sent a fractured mandate in the polls. The Congress extended support to the first Arvind Kejriwal government from outside. The government lasted only 49 days.

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In the next assembly election held in 2015, the AAP won 67 of the 70 seats in Delhi. In the 2020 Delhi Assembly election, the AAP won 62 out of 70 seats. The BJP won eight seats. The Congress failed to a single seat in both 2015 and 2020 assembly elections in Delhi.

The AAP leader Kejriwal, who resigned as Delhi chief minister last year, recently claimed that there was a large-scale fraud happening with voter additions and deletions in the New Delhi Assembly constituency. He shared a letter from Delhi Chief Minister Atishi, which was sent to the Delhi chief electoral officer.

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Atishi claimed in her letter that thousands of voter addition and deletion applications were being processed. Between October 29, 2024, and January 2, 2025, there were over 13,000 Form-6 (voter additions) and 6,166 Form-7 (voter deletions), her letter said.

The total number of votes in the New Delhi Assembly constituency is 106,873, and 6,166 votes (about 5.77 per cent) are being sought for deletion, the letter said. According to election rules, if more than two per cent of the votes are requested for deletion, the Election Registration Officer (ERO) must personally verify the deletions.

Responding to the AAP’s claim, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva accused ruling party leaders Raghav Chadha and Sanjay Singh of threatening the election officer and demanded action against them.

Sachdeva’s charge came after a letter from the New Delhi district election officer raised concerns about AAP leaders’ claims related to voter deletions. Sachdeva also alleged that AAP leaders, including Atishi, Kejriwal, Singh and Chadha, were involved in a plot to undermine democracy.