The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday eased to victory in seven of 12 seats in Municipal Corporation of Delhi by-polls, to add to a dominant win in the February Assembly election.
The Aam Aadmi Party - dumped out of power by the BJP 10 months ago after over a decade in power - finished a distant second with three seats. And a struggling Congress did what it could not do earlier this year - win a seat in a Delhi election. The twelfth seat went to the All India Forward Bloc.
But it wasn't all positive news for the BJP. The ruling party went into this by-poll with nine seats in its pocket, only to lose two - one each to the Congress and AIFB. On the plus side, it did flip one; Chandni Chowk, won by the AAP in the 2022 full election, was picked up by the saffron party's Suman Gupta.
The AAP, meanwhile, returned the favour, winning the Naraina ward the BJP won in 2022.
The dropped seats, though, will not affect the BJP's control of the House.
The party now holds 122 of 250 seats and the AAP 102. The Congress will now hold nine.
Nevertheless, this election was significant for the BJP and AAP.
For the former, it was seen as the first big electoral test for Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, a test she passed comfortably. For the latter, it was a similar scenario; it was Saurabh Bhardwaj's first election since taking charge of the party's Delhi unit and, he too, will claim a win after not losing any seats.
The by-polls were for the Greater Kailash, Shalimar Bagh B, Ashok Vihar, Chandni Chowk, Chandni Mahal, Dichaon Kalan, Naraina, Sangam Vihar A, Dakshin Puri, Mundka, Vinod Nagar, and Dwarka B wards. Eleven fell vacant after their councillors were elected to the Assembly.
The biggest of those vacancies was Shalimar Bagh B, a ward previously represented by the BJP's Rekha Gupta, who won the Shalimar Bagh Assembly seat and is now the Chief Minister of Delhi.
Anita Jain retained the ward for the BJP. The party also retained the Chandni Chowk, Greater Kailash, and Ashok Vihar wards. Veena Asija won the latter by a narrow margin of 405 votes.
The Congress' sole win was in Sangam Vihar A; Suresh Chaudhary polled 12,766 votes to defeat his BJP rival by 3,628 votes and told reporters, "The credit goes to the people of Sangam Vihar...Many BJP leaders, including the Chief Minister, came here (to campaign) but did not ask for votes on the basis of work. And it did not work for them."
The AIFB's Mohd. Imran picked up the Chandani Mahal ward.
The AAP held on to its wards - Dakhshinpuri, Mundka, and Naraina. Ram Swaroop Kanojia, who won from Dakshinpuri, said, "I give credit to (AAP boss) Arvind Kejriwal, MLA Prem Chauhan, and the public. I am very happy we won. I received a lot of love and respect..."
