Assembly polls 2013: AAP draws support from both urban areas and rural Delhi

“Look at our performance among urban voters. We had a brilliant run in Greater Kailash where the competition was between us, a strong corporator from Congress and the son of the BJP’s sitting MLA. We also won the Malviya Nagar seat against opposition from people like Arti Mehra and Kiran Walia, one a former mayor and the other a cabinet minister ,” said party sources.

Prakash, the party’s youngest candidate from Deoli, perhaps set a record of sorts by managing one of the biggest vote share for AAP with 51,646 votes. Its closest rival was BJP with 34,538.

“The party made an almost clean sweep in rural Delhi, resettlement colonies and JJ clusters. We ended up winning seats like Madipur, Kondli and Trilokpuri which are totally resettlement areas. In key rural seats like Bijwasan and Matiala where the party did not win, the margins were not too huge. In the former , we lost by around 2,000 votes and in the latter by around 4,000,” said party sources. AAP’s internal surveys were looking at a clean majority based on an expected shift of the Muslim vote which did not happen to the extent needed.

One of the biggest upsets by AAP was dislodging of Raj Kumar Chauhan from Mangolpuri constituency. Rakhi Birla, AAP candidate, is a completely unknown face, a young journalist who fought her first election . The other surprise victory was recorded in Seemapuri. The candidate, Dharmendra Singh, contested in place of his sister, Santosh Koli, the original choice for the seat who died in a mysterious accident earlier this year. Dharmendra , who declared the lowest assets, operated through the campaigning period without even a phone. He won with an astounding margin of 12,000 votes.

“Seemapuri is the karmbhoomi of Kejriwal where he formed his NGO, Parivartan, and started his agitation. He enjoys massive goodwill in this area. In fact, the seats of Rohini, Shalimar Bagh and Shakurbasti have also been won in part due to Kejriwal,” said sources.