Delhi Elections 2020: AAP Ahead As Campaign Enters Last Leg

Campaigning in the bitterly contested assembly elections in Delhi will conclude on Thursday evening with analysts tipping the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to be the favourite. The BJP unleashed its big guns including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home Minister Amit Shah, UP chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union ministers Smriti Irani, Piyush Goyal and others launching a blitzkrieg over the last few days. However, it does appear that the BJP's star power is no match for the AAP's grassroots campaign.

BJP leaders also received the highest number of notices from the Election Commission for violation of model code of conduct. Electioneering bans have been slapped on its campaigners including MP Parvesh Verma and Union Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur.

As the curtains come down on canvassing for the prestigious state of Delhi, it becomes clear that Congress is nowhere on the scene despite rallies by its star campaigners Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra over the last two days. AAP, meanwhile, has managed to consolidate its position and to some extent, was helped by the BJP in this.

BJP leaders' references to Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal as a terrorist, were exploited to the hilt by the AAP supremo. He played the victim card citing his development work and then asking people everywhere whether someone doing such work could be called a terrorist?

Kejriwal also positioned himself as a devout Hindu and even recited the Hanuman Chalisa in one interaction. In doing so, he has been trying to take the sheen of aggressive Hindutva off the BJP image.

In bringing Shaheen Bagh to the centre-stage of electioneering, the BJP led by PM Modi hopes that nationalism will tip the scales in its favour. AAP while trying to steer clear of Shaheen Bagh politics, has been stressing on schools, health care, other development activities which it claims it had done and will achieve through its guarantee card over the next five years, if re-elected.

February 11 will reveal as to which way the Delhi voters have swung and whose assurances they had believed or found more credible.