New Delhi: At least two Exit Polls Sunday predicted that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) was heading for a landslide victory, finishing way ahead of the Aam Aadi Party (AAP) and the Congress, in the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections where according to State Election Commissioner S K Srivastava around 54 per cent of the total registered voters casted their votes.
The Exit Polls predictions came after polling for 270 seats in 03 Delhi Municipal Corporations ended Sunday evening. The elections to two municipal wards— Sarai Peepal Kalan (North MCD) and Maujpur (East MCD)— postponed following the deaths of candidates, incidentally both from the Samajwadi Party.
According to the India Today-Axis exit poll, the BJP may bag anything between 202 and 220 seats, while the AAP and the Congress will score something around 23-35 and 19-31 respectively.
The CVoter-ABP exit poll claimed the BJP was likely to sweep Delhi with 218 seats, limiting the AAP and the Congress to 24 and 22 seats respectively. The survey has given the BJP 52% of the total votes.
A total of 2,537 candidates were in the fray. For the first time, the None Of The Above (NOTA) option was made available in the MCD polls.
Besides, BJP, AAP and Congress, Swaraj India led by Yogendra Yadav and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) led by Asaduddin Owaisi have also fielded candidates for the first time in Delhi local elections.
A total of 1,32,10,206 voters, including over 1.1 lakh first-time voters, were eligible to exercise their franchise to elect the councillors at more than 13,022 polling stations in three civic bodies.
Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had alleged that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) malfunctioned at many places. He also alleged that voters were lined up in front of polling booths with their IDs. But they were not allowed to cast their votes.
"Reports from all over Delhi of EVM malfunction, people wid voter slips not allowed to vote. What is SEC doing?" he tweeted.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was trifurcated in 2012 into the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) and South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC).
There are 272 wards in the three municipal corporations. NDMC and SMDC have 104 seats each, while the EDMC has 64. All three are currently ruled by the BJP.
Counting of votes will be held on Wednesday April 26.