Delhi Election 2020

The Delhi election 2020 will be held on 8 February to elect 70 members of the Assembly. The results will be declared on 11 February 2020. The term of the current Assembly, elected in 2015, will expire on 22 February.

This election will be a three-cornered contest among the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC). The AAP, led by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, had got a thumping majority in the 2015 Assembly election, with the party bagging 67 seats; the BJP had managed to win the remaining three seats. The Congress, which was in power in Delhi for three consecutive terms (from 1998 to 2013), had drawn a blank in the 2015 Assembly election.

The campaigning of Delhi election reached its peak, with the three major parties in the fray — the AAP, Congress, and BJP — launching a political slugfest with anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests at the centre of the narrative.

The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into force in Delhi after an announcement by Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora on January 27. The campaigning ends on Thursday (February 6) at 5 pm.

There are 13,750 polling stations in Delhi. Out of the 70 seats, 12 are reserved for schedule caste (SC) candidates. According to the chief electoral officer (CEO) Delhi, Ranbir Singh, there are a total of 14.6 million registered voters in Delhi — 8.05 million males and 6.6 million females.

The AAP has fielded its candidates in all 70 seats, the BJP in 67, and Congress in 66. The BJP, which is contesting this election in a pre-poll alliance with the Janata Dal (United) and Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP), has left two seats for the JD(U) and one for the LJP. Similarly, the Congress has left four seats for its ally Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). The Kejriwal-led AAP, which has fielded eight women candidates, has denied tickets to 15 sitting MLAs.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is contesting from the New Delhi Assembly seat, and his deputy Manish Sisodia from Patparganj. Among other prominent faces in the AAP are Raghav Chadha (Rajinder Nagar), Somnath Bharti (Malviya Nagar), Saurabh Bhardwaj (Greater Kailash), Atishi (Kalkaji), Ram Niwas Goyal (Shahdara), Gopal Rai (Babarpur), Kailash Gahlot (Najafgarh) and Satyendar Jain (Shakur Basti).

The BJP has fielded Sunil Yadav against Kejriwal from New Delhi and the Congess has placed its bets on Romesh Sabharwal. The BJP’s Tajinderpal Singh Bagga is contesting from Hari Nagar against the AAP’s Rajkumari Dhillon, while former AAP members Kapil Mishra and Alka Lamba are contesting from Model Town and Chandni Chowk for the BJP and Congress, respectively. Out of the 70 candidates of the BJP and its allies, only 6 are women.

Congress has fielded some of the known faces for the upcoming assembly elections in Delhi. Former Delhi ministers Haroon Yusuf, Arvinder Singh Lovely and A K Walia are contest from Ballimaran, Gandhi Nagar and Krishna Nagar, respectively. Former Delhi University Students' Union president Rocky Tuseed is also contesting on a Congress ticket from the Rajinder Nagar constituency.