New Delhi:
Delhi will know who will rule its three newly-created municipal corporations today - will the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) get second time lucky or will the Congress bypass the BJP and takeover the helm of affairs.
The counting of votes for 272 wards began at 33 centres across the capital at 8 this morning amid tight security. The results are expected to come in by 3 pm, a senior State Election Commission official said.
The counting exercise is being closely watched by the BJP and the Congress. Stakes are high for both national parties as the municipal elections are considered a semifinal ahead of Assembly elections next year. In the leads available so far, the BJP is ahead in 91 seats and the Congress is gaining in 64.
Both the Congress and the BJP claim their parties would sweep the polls. Delhi Congress chief JP Agarwal says he is "100 per cent confident" about his party's victory. His BJP counterpart Vijender Gupta too claims that he is "certain" that his camp will win all the three corporations.
The BJP, which has 164 councilors in the undivided Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) against Congress' 67 and BSP's 17, has been harping on alleged corruption by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's government while the Congress has been targeting the saffron party on its "inefficient and corrupt" administration in MCD.
In the 2007 polls to the undivided MCD, the BJP had bagged 36.17% of around 42.35 lakh votes polled while the Congress got 29.17%. The BSP's vote share was 9.87%.
Polling for all the wards spread in three corporations - East, South and North - was held on Sunday when over 55 per cent voters came out to vote and sealed the fate of 2,423 candidates.
There are 104 wards each in South and North corporations and 64 in the East. Of these, 138 seats are reserved for women. South has the highest number of 904 candidates followed by North (885) and East (634).