Delhi Assembly / 15.57% voter turnout recorded till 12 noon in Delhi assembly election

New Delhi: Delhi reported an estimated voter turnout of 15.57% in the first three hours of polling for the assembly election to the 70 constituencies, the Election Commission of India officials said.

Delhi had recorded a voter turnout of 67.12% in the last assembly elections held in 2015.

More than 14.7 million voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the Delhi assembly election for the 672 candidates in the fray in the keenly-watched battle for the national capital.

There are 81,05,236 male voters, 66,80,277 female voters and 869 third gender voters. They queued up to vote in the 13,571 polling booths across 2689 areas in the Capital.

In the last elections, Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had registered a landslide victory by winning 67 of the 70 seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had got three seats and the Congress zero.

The AAP is contesting on all the 70 seats, while the BJP has fielded its candidates on 67 seats and has left three seats for its allies—two for Janata Dal(United) and one for Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).

On the other hand, Congress is contesting on 66 seats and has given four seats to its ally Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Kejriwal’s AAP is hoping to retain power for the second consecutive term and the BJP is looking to win by cashing in on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal.

The Congress, which was in power for 15 years at a stretch in Delhi under the leadership of former chief minister late Sheila Dixit till the party lost to the AAP in 2015 polls, is hoping for a revival.

The AAP has focused on local governance issues and its track record in the past five years and the BJP campaigned on the larger ideological issue of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and national security.

Chief minister Kejriwal is contesting from prestigious New Delhi seat and the BJP has fielded Sunil Yadav against him while Congress nominated Romesh Sabbarwal from the seat.

The AAP’s Dilip Pandey is contesting from Timarpur, Atishi from Kalkaji, Raghav Chadha from Rajender Nagar.

The BJP has fielded Vijender Gupta from Rohini. Former AAP leader Kapil Mishra is the BJP candidate from Model Town in this election. Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga is a BJP candidate from Hari Nagar.

Congress has fielded Arvinder Singh Lovely from Gandhi Nagar. Former AAP leader Alka Lamba is a Congress candidate from Chandni Chowk. Haroon Yusuf is contesting from Ballimaran.

To ensure peaceful polling in all the 70 assemblies, as many as 190 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) have been deployed. Besides this, 19,000 Home Guards and 42,000 Delhi Police personnel are also on duty.

Additional staff from the PCR, traffic, and communication have also been pressed into service to man the polling booths.

There are 3,141 polling stations which have been identified as critical along with 144 vulnerable polling stations and 102 expenditure sensitive pockets.

All the five polling stations in Shaheen Bagh have been declared “critical” by Delhi’s chief electoral officer (CEO).