In the by-poll results announced on Thursday, the Aam Aadmi Party faced a humiliating loss in Delhi. The Chief of AAP, Arvind Kejriwal put up a brave show and said that the voters had not elected the party’s sitting candidate as they were angry with him.
The seat fell vacant after Jarnail Singh resigned from his position as the representative of Rajouri Garden Constituency and contested in the Punjab Assembly elections. The minister had also lost the Assembly elections in February. Kejriwal said that this resignation upset people and they chose not to vote for AAP in the by-polls.
The Deputy CM of Delhi, Manish Sisodia also admitted that this loss showed the anger of people with the party. He also stressed that this loss was a result of Singh’s participation in Punjab Polls and resigning from the post in Rajouri and not the performance of the party on the whole. The AAP party member Harjeet Singh contested from Rajouri in by-polls. Not only did he lose the polls but did not have enough votes to recover his deposit and forfeited it.
Harjeet got 10,243 votes and the winning BJP member Manjinder Singh Sirsa managed to gain a whopping 40,602 votes. Sirsa had re-won this constituency after 2013. Congress came in second with 25,950 votes and having 15,000 margins over AAP.
Sisodia, speaking about the loss said that despite winning 282 seats, BJP too had lost many by-elections and this should be considered the performance barometer of the Party.
