11 turncoats make a mark

Among 22 candidates of the AAP and the BJP who had shifted their party allegiances, 11 came out to be winners in the Delhi Assembly elections on Saturday.

The AAP had fielded 11 defected candidates who had joined from the Congress and the BJP. Out of these, only four won. Among them, the AAP suffered a heavy defeat in Najafgarh by a margin of 29,009 votes, the seat which was vacated by former Cabinet Minister in AAP-led Delhi Government Kailash Gahlot.

Tarun Yadav was fielded by the party following Gahlot’s departure to BJP. However, the latter was fielded by the saffron party in Bijwasan. Meanwhile, Gahlot won the seat, while Yadav was defeated by BJP’s Neelam Pehalwan and Congress’ Sushma Devi came third.

AAP’s Sumesh Shokeen, who defected from Congress, was fielded from Matiala. Shokeen also lost by a big margin of 28,723 votes against BJP’s Sandeep Sehrawat. The Matiala seat was held by the AAP’s Gulab Singh Yadav since 2015, who was not given a ticket in this elections.

Notably, in Chhatarpur, AAP had roped in Brahm Singh Tanwar from BJP, and the latter roped in AAP’s sitting MLA Kartar Singh Tanwar, who once again won, however, from the saffron party.

Interestingly, the AAP had also brought in Padma Shri Jitender Singh Shunty, who is widely recognised for his contributions in Covid by ensuring the cremation of unidentified bodies. Meanwhile, Shunty had to concede defeat in the elections from the Shahdara seat.

The seat was vacated by Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel. Shunty lost the seat by a margin of 5,178 votes against BJP’s Sanjay Goyal.

However, Seelampur’s AAP candidate Chaudhary Zubair Ahmed, who had joined the party leaving Congress along with his father who had been a five-time MLA from the constituency, won by a handsome margin of 42,477 votes against BJP’s Anil Kumar Sharma and the outgoing MLA Abdul Rehman, who contested from Congress. Another Congress defectee Veer Singh Dhingan won by a margin of 10, 368 votes.

Meanwhile, among the BJP candidates, who defected to the party, seven came out to be winners.

Former veteran Congress leaders, Tarwinder Singh Marwah, Arvinder Singh Lovely and Raj Kumar Chauhan brought victory to the BJP in Jangpura, Mangolpuri and Gandhi Nagar.

Marwah, who had defected to the BJP in 2022, defeated AAP’s top leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, however by a narrow margin of 675 votes. While, Lovely defeated AAP’s candidate Naveen Chaudhary (Deepu) by more than 12,000 votes and Chauhan who had previously been in the Shiela Dixit’s cabinet, a three-time MLA and defected to BJP along with Lovely, won from the Mangolpuri seat for the fourth time by a margin of 6,255 votes against AAP’s new face in the seat replacing MLA Rakhi Bidlan – Dharam Rakshak, aka Rakesh Jatav.