MCD Poll

MCD Polls: 45% Voter Turnout Recorded Till 4 Pm

The overall polling percentage for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), for all 250 wards, stood at 45 percent (approx) till 4 pm, the State Election Commission informed on Sunday.

In what could be termed a lukewarm response to a high-pitched campaign by the AAP and the BJP for the Delhi civic polls, the overall voter turnout on Sunday was only about 30 percent, a marginal improvement from an even poorer turnout of 18 percent till 12 noon and just 9 percent till 10.30 am.
The polling kicked off at 8 am and will end at 5.30 pm.

The incumbent BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and the Congress and locked in a keen three-cornered contest for the 250 MCD wards this year. The polling process kicked off amid tight security arrangements on a chilly Sunday morning in the national capital.

Seeking to put the AAP on the defensive during the campaign phase, the BJP released several video clips purportedly showing jailed Delhi minister Satyendar Jain receiving privileged treatment behind bars.

While one clip purportedly showed Jain receiving a personalised body massage, another showed the minister purportedly digging into a five-course meal.

While the BJP centered its civic poll campaign around the purported clips, claiming that the Jail minister was receiving privileged treatment behind bars at Tihar jail, the AAP denied the charge saying that Jain was only being administered physiotherapy on medical advice.

Over 1.45 crore people are eligible to cast their votes in the civic polls, the state poll panel had informed earlier, adding that a total of 1,349 candidates, across parties, are in the fray this year.

The state poll panel had further informed that it had set up 13,638 polling stations for civic elections, adding that a sizeable workforce of election functionaries and security agencies had put in a lot of effort in making the necessary poll preparations.

The counting of votes will be done on December 7. (ANI)

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58% Polling in Last Phase

MCD Polls: 9% Of Voters’ Turnout Till 10:30 Am

The cold Delhi winter affects the voting trends in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections as only around 9 per cent of voters’ turnout was recorded till 10:30 am on Sunday, as per the State Election Commission.

The voting for civic body polls is underway amid tight security across the national capital.
The voting for 250 wards began at 8 am and will conclude at 5:30 pm.

Over 1.45 crore people are eligible to vote in civic polls in which 1,349 candidates are in the fray, setting the stage for the high-stakes civic polls largely seen as a three-way contest between the BJP, the AAP and the Congress.

Delhi witnessed high-decibel campaigning by AAP and BJP which made top leaders, including

The counting of votes will be done on December 7.

According to data shared by the State Election Commission officials, the total number of voters in Delhi is 1,45,05,358 — 78,93,418 males, 66,10,879 females and 1,061 transgender persons. There are 250 wards in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

Delhi State Election Commission has set up 13,638 polling stations for the elections.

The State Election Commission said a large workforce of election functionaries and security agencies have put humungous efforts to make necessary preparations for conducting elections at 13,638 polling stations spread across Delhi.

68 Model Polling Stations have been set up with facilities including a waiting area/lounge, distribution of candies/toffees to voters, a selfie booth and Civil Defence Volunteers to help PwD/senior citizens

68 Pink booths have been set up with facilities including all-female staff at the polling station, a feeding room for lactating mothers, a creche facility for small kids accompanying voters, swings for kids, selfie booth.

The Commission said it has made elaborate arrangements for “safe, secure and pleasant” voting experience. These measures are required to keep the electoral field free and to ensure that a level playing field is afforded to all political parties and candidates.

Both the AAP and the BJP have exuded confidence that they will emerge victorious in the polls while the Congress is trying to regain lost turf.

The BJP, which has governed the civic body in Delhi since 2007, is looking to maintain its winning streak while the Aam Aadmi Party, which has a majority in the Assembly, is looking to make inroads in the first municipal election in the capital after the delimitation of wards.

This is the first civic election after the fresh delimitation exercise. There were 272 wards in Delhi and three corporations- NDMC, SDMC, and EDMC in Delhi from 2012-2022 that later reunified into an MCD that had formally come into existence on May 22. (ANI)

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Bad News Awaits NDA In Bihar

Suddenly, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) seems to find itself in a Catch-22 situation in Bihar, surrounded by a complex web of failed tactics, rapidly shifting electoral patterns and a slippery ground beneath its feet. Even its poll planks seem to be not clicking in the manner in which it had hoped they would, like providing the mythical Corona vaccine ‘free’ to the people in Bihar.

With an incumbent chief minister on a sticky wicket, how far will the charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi succeed in a highly polarized state, remains a puzzling conjecture. Ironically, the current situation has only emerged in recent days, because in the pre-poll scenario it all seemed hunky dory for the NDA, and they were pretty sure that they will romp home comfortably in the polls, and Nitish Kumar will therefore continue his reign after 15 years of rule in Patna.

So what happened in a state which is credited by seasoned journalists as politically extremely smart and sharp, though entrenched caste equations, loyalties and hierarchies, and remnants of feudalism still rule the roost in the hinterland? What is the reading on the ground?

There is a view that Modi’s TRP ratings remain reasonably high despite the economic slump and mass unemployment, though there is no survey which can prove that. It is also a view that the collapse of the administrative and health system post corona and the migration of thousands of migrant workers to Bihar, and the ‘reverse migration’ thereafter post lockdown, and the crass insensitivity and inefficiency displayed by an inactive Nitish Kumar government, will not really make an impact on the voting patterns. Indeed, this remains an open question.

According to reports, even insiders in the ruling alliance feel that the migrant workers carry a grudge against the Bihar government, and their sense of hurt is bad news for the NDA. Several jobless workers have finally returned back to an uncertain future in the cities, knowing fully well that they will neither be protected if attacked by the virus, or in terms of employment and an economic cushion in their home state.

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The important factor going against the incumbent chief minister is that he seems to have lost a lot of credibility in terms of administration and ideology. He won the last assembly elections in alliance with the RJD of Lalu Prasad and Congress. Despite the RJD being a bigger party in terms of MLAs, Lalu was magnanimous to give the chief ministership to Nitish Kumar. Earlier to that Nitish Kumar did a great hullaballoo about keeping a ‘safe distance’ from Modi, presumably to protect his alleged ‘secular’ credentials, and so that the minorities choose to vote for him, especially the poor Muslims he had cultivated along with extremely backward castes and Maha-Dalits. So much so, ‘Sushasan Babu’ positioned himself as a PM contender to Modi, though he chose to stay in the NDA government even after the Gujarat killings of 2002, even while someone like Ram Vilas Paswan quit the government in protest, only to rejoin later under Modi.

Now, the late Dalit leader’s son, Chirag Paswan, is giving a hard time to Nitish Kumar, attacking him directly, while fielding candidates against the Janata Dal (U) across the state. So much so, several BJP leaders, either rebels or those denied tickets, have been fielded by Chirag Paswan. There are reports that the upper castes, who are with the BJP, have chosen to vote for Chirag Paswan’s candidates wherever JD (U) candidates are contesting. There are also unconfirmed reports that Chirag Paswan, who hails Modi as his leader, has been propped up by the BJP to cut Nitish Kumar to size, despite the BJP rhetoric of backing him as the next chief minister.

In this dubious strategic shifts, finally, the loser will be the ageing current chief minister who seems to be losing his cool even in his own rallies, whereby he has been heckled in some of them. “Don’t vote for me, go away,” he shouted back at the hecklers from the dais – not a happy sign for a chief minister.

Besides, all the good he has done in the past, like law and order improvement, lack of corruption, prohibition, and schemes for women such as cycles for school girls, seems a distant page from the distant past. His current tenure, especially after he betrayed Lalu Yadav, has been lackluster. He has been hemmed in by his partner, the BJP, even while the ex-PM contender easily gave away all his high moral ground to the superiority of Modi in Delhi.

The prohibition card has boomeranged, and women are not at all happy with it. Apparently alcohol is easily available in the black market, as is the underground reality wherever alcohol is banned. Women complain that earlier their husbands were drinking outside, now they drink in the ‘safe confines’ of their homes. Poor households run by women are feeling terribly let down.

ALSO READ: Can Socialism Find Its Feet?

The roads which he built in his first term seem to have cracked after 15 years and the bureaucracy he trusts seems to have lost its moorings. Corruption has apparently returned from the back door. However, the starkest is the bitter realism of mass unemployment and abysmal lack of industrial or economic growth in Bihar in the last 15 years. Voters who were children when Nitish Kumar started his innings are now young adults and they don’t find any spark of optimism in their own state, either in education, health services, social infrastructure or employment generation.

Poor communities and landless labourers continue to migrate, and often face harsh and difficult circumstances, with low, unpredictable wages and no fundamental rights. The stagnation in agriculture and old structures of oppression continue to simmer in many places, even as some things just refuse to change. Dalits and the extremely poor with aspirations find no scaffolding or avenue to grow out of their unhappy reality.

Tejeshwi Yadav has promised 10 lakh jobs. It has clicked across the youth, forcing rival NDA to promising a higher number of jobs. The young leader’s rallies are attracting huge crowds, but rallies are not the real indicators of voting patterns. The emergence of the Left, especially the CPI-ML (Liberation), in almost 25 seats, with its strong and committed base among the poorest and the working class, has given an impetus to the Mahagathbandhan of RJD, Congress and the Left. The CPI-ML can help in scores of constituencies, and its radical presence itself has given a distinct pro-poor flavour to the opposition alliance.

With Nitish slipping, will Modi take the centre-stage, and will Article 370 and China threat click? Recent history shows that in assembly elections, Modi’s popularity does not work. Be it Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, even in Manipur, Gujarat, Goa and Bihar, the BJP did not do well in the assembly elections. In some states they formed the government by hijacking MLAs, as in Goa, Manipur and MP. So the Modi card might have limited use in a state which had actually voted overwhelming against the BJP and its supreme leader in the last assembly polls.