New Delhi:
Arvind Kejriwal has lost his re-election bid from the New Delhi seat to former two-time BJP MP Parvesh Verma, whom the party had held back from contesting last year’s Lok Sabha election.
Mr Kejriwal finished around 1,200 votes behind his rival, with the Congress’ Sandeep Dikshit third, a set of results that will also reignite talk over the rift between the two parties – both members of the stuttering INDIA bloc – and if an alliance may have allowed the AAP boss to retain his seat if not his government.
Meanwhile, ‘giant-slayer’ Mr Verma, a potential future Chief Minister following in the footsteps of his father, Sahib Singh Verm , is expected to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Arvind Kejriwal has held the New Delhi seat since 2013, when he beat Congress stalwart and then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit to herald what would be the AAP’s decade-long rule of Delhi.
The AAP boss’ defeat – announced minutes after his former deputy, Manish Sisodia, surrendered his contest in Janpgura – underlined the scale of his party’s rout in this election.
Bidding for a third consecutive term, Mr Kejriwal and the AAP are, instead, set for a humiliating defeat; at 1pm, the BJP was leading in 48 of Delhi’s 70 Assembly seats and the AAP in 22.
Instead, defeat for Mr Kejriwal is being seen as the ‘end’ of the AAP, particularly since two of its three most high-profile leaders – Mr Kejriwal and Mr Sisodia, both were jailed over corruption in the city’s liquor excise policy – have lost, and a third – Chief Minister Atishi is trailing.
