New Delhi:
Delhi votes for a new government today. The BJP, on a winning streak since last year's national election, faces a tough challenge from Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party. Results will be announced on Tuesday.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted this morning, "As Delhi votes today, urging voters to go out and vote in large numbers. I particularly call upon my young friends to vote in record numbers."
The big question being asked - who will be Delhi's next chief minister. In what is seen as a personality driven contest, Arvind Kejriwal, 46, takes on the BJP's Kiran Bedi, 65, for the top post.
For the first time since it came to power at the Centre in May last, the BJP announced a chief ministerial candidate in a state election, picking Kiran Bedi, a former police officer and activist who joined the party only last month.
Four days after she joined the party, Kiran Bedi was named presumptive chief minister, a move that caused heartburn among senior Delhi BJP leaders awaiting their turn. The BJP was last in power in Delhi 16 years ago.
Kiran Bedi's dramatic entry marked a big shift in the BJP's strategy of projecting only its most popular face, PM Modi, in state polls since he scripted a massive win for the party in the national elections.
Many billed bringing in Kiran Bedi to counter Arvind Kejriwal as a masterstroke - they share similar administrative experience and were also associates as part of Gandhian activist Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign in 2011. But when state leaders showed disinterest in rallying around Ms Bedi, who struggled to draw the kind of crowds Mr Kejriwal was, a worried BJP re-designed its Delhi election strategy.
BJP chief Amit Shah deployed over a hundred lawmakers and ministers to campaign in the city and seemed to fall back upon his tested formula, with PM Modi addressing four rallies in five days.
After several opinion polls predicted gains for Arvind Kejriwal's AAP, both PM Modi and Mr Shah dismissed such surveys warning party workers and voters against being swayed by them.
The Congress, which ruled Delhi for three straight terms, is widely expected to finish a distant third in the race once again. In 2013, the party was decimated; it managed to win only eight of 70 seats.
Last February, Arvind Kejriwal had resigned as chief minister after 49 days in office. After nine months of central rule, the Delhi assembly elected in December 2013 was dissolved and fresh elections were announced.
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