Delhi Results: Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra at an election rally.
The performance of the Congress in the Delhi assembly election has been its worst ever since 1993, when Delhi became a union territory with a legislature and had its first assembly election.
Not only did the Congress draw a blank in this election, its vote percentage too slid to below 5 per cent, which is almost half as compared to the 2015 polls.
The Congress had fielded its candidates in 66 of the 70 seats while giving four seats to its ally, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
The 63 of the 66 Congress candidates forfeited their deposits, even on the seats where Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi campaigned for the party.
The party even failed to save the deposit of state president Subhash Chopra's daughter Shivani Chopra, who contested from the Kalkaji assembly seat.
In this seat, the party had campaigned with full force with big star campaigners including Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Rajya Sabha MP Raj Babbar campaigning for her.
According the Election Commission of India (ECI) rules, if a candidate fails to get a minimum of one-sixth of the total valid votes polled, their security deposit goes to the treasury.
Poonam Azad, wife of the Congress's campaign committee chief Kirti Azad, who contested from Sangam Vihar, got only 2,601 votes. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had addressed four rallies in the last week of the campaign. Rahul Gandhi had addressed four meetings, of which, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was present with him only in two meetings.
In these four seats, Congress got 15 per cent votes in Jangpura while in Kondli, Matiamahal and Sangam Vihar, deposit of the Congress candidates was forfeited. Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi's rallies were apparently planned to reach out to the voters from the Muslim community, but the party lost miserably in all the Muslim- dominated assembly seats like Ballimaran, Matia Mahal, Mustafabad, Seelampur and Babarpur. Rahul Gandhi had addressed a rally in Kondli and campaigned for two Dalit candidates but they too lost their deposits.
The story remained same in case of Purvanachal vote bank with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra campaigning for Poonam Azad in the Sangam Vihar assembly seat, who came fourth in the contest and secured votes even less than the BSP(Bahujan Samaj Party) candidate. Only in three seats - Gandhinagar, Seelampur and Kasturba Nagar - the Congress candidates could make the contest triangular and save their deposits. In terms of vote percentage, party leader Abhishek Dutt secured more than 20 per cent votes on the Kasturba Nagar seat.
Devendra Yadav in Badli and Arvinder Singh Lovely in Gandhinagar also got around 20 per cent votes. Of these, the BJP won in Gandhinagar.
The RJD(Rashtriya Janata Dal) candidates too lost their deposit in three seats. The RJD candidates got less than NOTA (None of the Above) on these seats.