Delhi election results: Congress decimated in its strongholds

New Delhi - In pulling off the biggest upset in recent election history by defeating Sheila Dikshit, Arvind Kejriwal and his spectacular debut has brought the curtains down on an era of a decade-and-a-half of uninterrupted Congress rule. The Congress party’s serial MLAs – some of them in power longer than Dikshit – have been decisively voted out by Delhi’s voters. Constituencies long known to be strongholds of the Congress party such as Uttam Nagar, Jangpura, Ambedkar Nagar, Mongolpuri – all of which have voted for the Congress party in the last four elections – have abandoned the party. In three of those seats, the Aam Admi Party’s candidates have achieved stunning victories, with the BJP snatching the Uttam Nagar seat from the Congress heavy weight Mukesh Sharma. AAP pulled off a remarkable victory in South Delhi’s Jangpura constituency defeating four-time MLA Tarvinder Singh Marwah by close to 2000 votes. Former PWD minister Raj Kumar Chouhan, who was the favourite to win his fifth term from the Mongol Puri seat, has been yet another casualty of the AAP wave. Chouhan lost by a wide margin of 10,000 votes to the Rakhi Birla of AAP. In another shocker, former speaker of the Delhi Assembly and former Delhi Congress chief Prem Singh, who hasn’t lost an election since the 1955, finished third, losing his seat to AAP’s Ashok Kumar. [caption id=“attachment_1246577” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] PTI[/caption] Only three former ministers of the Dikshit government survived the anti-incumbency wave. Former food and civl supplies minister Haroon Yusuf who retained his seat from Ballimaran, former health minister A K Walia from Laxmi Nagar and former urban development minister Arvinder Singh Lovely was voted back to power from Gandhi Nagar, but by half the margin he won in 2008. Three-time Congress MLAs, who were considered a sure shot ticket to victory, too have been have been swept away by the anti-Congress wave. Subhash Chopra from Kalkaji, Naseeb Singh from Vishwas Nagar and Narendra Nath from Shahadra lost to their BJP rivals and Veer Singh Dhingan from Seempuri, Mala Ram Gangwal from Madipur and Rajesh Jain from Sadar Bazar lost to AAP candidates. Reduced to eight seats from the a tally of 43 in 2008, the remaining five Congress candidates who won are Prahlad Sawhney from Chandini Chowk, Asif Mohammad from Okhla, Hasan Ahmed from Mustafabad, Chaudhury Mateen Ahmed from Seelampur and Jai Kishen from Sultanpur Majra.