784 Candidates Lose Deposit In Delhi Civic Body Elections

Over 780 candidates who were in contention in the civic polls in Delhi lost their deposit with the results being announced on Wednesday, according to data shared by the State Election Commission.

A total of 1,349 candidates tested their fortunes in the high-stakes polls held on December 4.

In a statement on Wednesday, the SEC shared data related to the counting exercise, according to which 784 candidates lost their security deposit.

These include 370 Independents, 188 candidates from the Congress, 128 from the BSP, 13 from the AIMIM, three from the AAP and 10 from the BJP, among others, it said.

The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday won the MCD polls with 134 seats, ending the 15-year rule of the BJP in the prestigious municipal corporation and reducing the Congress to just nine seats in a house of 250.

The BJP, which was predicted to suffer a massive defeat in exit polls, put up a spirited fight, winning 104 municipal wards, while three independents also emerged victorious.

Before the election, both the AAP and the BJP had exuded confidence that they would emerge victorious in the polls, while the Congress had sought to regain lost turf.

In the 2017 civic election, the BJP had won 181 of the 270 wards. Polling could not be held on two seats due to the death of candidates. The AAP had won 48 wards and the Congress 27. The voting percentage that year was around 53.

This was the first civic election after the reunification of the civic bodies and a fresh delimitation exercise.

There were 272 wards in Delhi and three corporations -- NDMC, SDMC and EDMC -- from 2012-2022, before being reunified into an MCD that had formally come into existence on May 22.

The erstwhile MCD, established in 1958, was trifurcated in 2012 during Sheila Dikshit's tenure as the chief minister.

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