New Delhi: With three weeks to go for the Delhi Assembly polls, ruling Congress and opposition BJP are locked in a keen electoral tussle in the capital where the Grand Old Party is hoping for a historic hat-trick amidst
fears that Mayawati-led BSP may cut into its votes.
All eyes will be on BSP, which is contesting 70 seats in the November 29 elections, after the party improved its tally in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi from two to 17 last year and with an increased vote share.
The decision of the UPA allies Samajwadi Party, Lok Janshakti Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal to field candidates in several seats in the capital has also given some heartburn to the Congress which is fighting anti-incumbency.
It is widely believed that BSP, which won an impressive 17 seats in last year's MCD election and is now contesting all 70 Assembly seats, will hamper Congress' prospects in many constituencies, eventually helping BJP to wrest the seats.
BJP leaders believe that if BSP could poll over 2,500 votes in a constituency, it could act to its advantage.
Senior leader Arun Jaitley, addressing a meeting of BJP candidates, acknowledged this and said "if there is a spoiler in place for your opponent, that would work for your advantage."
The saffron party is also banking on the votes polled in favour of UPA allies like SP, LJP and RJD. SP is contesting 33 seats, LJP over 40 and RJD five.
However, Congress leaders dismiss these as "high hopes" and claim that BSP is not going to make "much impact" as its Dalit votebank is intact as the Mayawati-led party could not make a dent in it in the MCD elections.
Though Congress leaders dismiss the candidates of the allies and BSP as "non-players", a section in the party feels that their presence would result in the division of secular votes.
"We are fighting for ourselves and not on the basis of who will win or who will lose.
We are not concerned whether BJP or Congress will gain or lose," Samajwadi Party Delhi president Shyam Gambhir said when asked whether division of secular votes would lead to BJP victory.
Samajwadi Party could wean away some Muslim votes from Congress while RJD and LJP is believed to have some influence among voters who belong to Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
All is not well in the city BJP unit also.
The candidate selection has evoked widespread protests against leadership with ticket losers staging dharnas at the party office and the residence of its Chief Ministerial candidate V K Malhotra.
Some protestors even heckled party Delhi chief Harsh Vardhan.
Sharp differences among Malhotra, Harsh Vardhan and BJP General Secretary Vijay Goel, who was in the race for Chief Ministerial candidature, delayed the announcement of candidates.
Goel even walked out of a meeting of the Election Management Committee.
The party also had not given authorisation letters to some candidates, whose names were announced, for filing their nominations after local leaders raised objections. One such candidate is Kalpana Jain who was tipped to fight against Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Harsh Vardhan admitted that there were protests in the party but expressed hope that this would soon fizzle out and everyone will "work together to oust Congress".
The candidate selection in Congress has also resulted in revolt. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit seems to have had her way in the candidate selection by managing to corner seats for almost all her loyalists.
Union Minister Ajay Maken and DPCC chief Jai Prakash Aggarwal could not make much leverage in the selection process.
Congress has announced candidates for 48 seats, the BJP has announced candidates for all the 70 seats.
The 77-year-old Dikshit is aiming for a record third consecutive time banking on development and initiatives taken to regularise unauthorised colonies while BJP is pinning hopes on anti-incumbency and price rise.
The saffron party will also raise the recent terror attacks in the city and safety and security.
Predicting a scrape through for the Congress, a pre-poll survey by Star TV has claimed that Dikshit might return to power for the third consecutive term in Delhi.
The survey claimed that ruling Congress, which has 47 MLAs in the present Assembly, will get 38 seats in the 70-member Assembly while opposition BJP will improve its tally from 20 to 29 in this election.
However, according to the survey, BSP will not get any seats despite an increase in its vote share from 5.76 per cent in 2003 to 10 per cent projected this time.
In what could be bad news for BJP's Chief Ministerial candidate Malhotra, Dikshit is way ahead of the South Delhi MP in popularity with 37 per cent of the 6,248 respondents favouring the Congress veteran. Malhotra polled 14 per cent.
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