Clean sweep for BJP in Delhi

New Delhi: The BJP is ahead in all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi on Tuesday, with its North-West Delhi candidate Yogender Chandoliya leading by a margin of over 2.08 lakh votes, according to trends on the Election Commission (EC) website. All the 7 candidates are asssured to win.

Three of BJP's candidates are leading by a margin of over a lakh votes. At many of the counting centres, celebrations erupted as BJP candidates looked on course to register victories over the AAP-Congress combine candidates. At the Atal Adarsh Balika Vidyalaya in Gole Market, BJP workers carrying shaving kits, in an apparent dig at the saffron party's rival candidate from AAP, Somnath Bharti.

After the exit polls on June 1, Bharti had vowed to shave his head if Narendra Modi retained the prime minister's post. The BJP's Praveen Khandelwal was initially trailing the Congress' Jai Prakash Agarwal in the Chandni Chowk seat but later moved ahead to secure a lead of 45,376 votes, the EC data showed. The BJP's North-East Delhi candidate Manoj Tiwari, who is pitted against the Congress' Kanhaiya Kumar, was leading by a margin of 1,01,000 votes.

BJP West Delhi candidate Kamaljeet Sehrawat, who is up against AAP's Mahabal Mishra, was ahead by a margin of 1,44,674 votes, and the BJP's North-West Delhi candidate Yogender Chandoliya was leading by 2,08,024 votes against the Congress' Udit Raj, the data showed. In the East Delhi seat, AAP's Kuldeep Kumar was trailing by a margin of 70,614 votes against the BJP's Harsh Malhotra.

The BJP's Ramvir Singh Bidhuri was ahead by a margin of 1,09,909 votes against AAP's Sahi Ram Pahalwan from South Delhi, while in the New Delhi constituency, BJP's Bansuri Swaraj -- daughter of late veteran leader Sushma Swaraj -- was in the lead by a margin of 66,442 votes. The BJP is in a direct contest with the Congress-AAP alliance in the national capital. The party had won all seven seats in Delhi in the 2014 and the 2019 general elections.