Delhi Assembly election 2020: Withdrawal of nomination ends; 668 candidates in fray

A total of 668 candidates will be contesting the Delhi Assembly election 2020 scheduled to take place on February 8. An overall of 30 people withdrew their candidature and Friday marked the last date for withdrawal of nominations. The election for the 70-member Delhi Assembly will take place in single-phase and the counting of votes will take place on February 11.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora on January 6 had announced the election schedule and the Model Code of Conduct came into effect immediately. The CEC said that 90,000 policemen will be deployed to ensure that the polling process is held smoothly across Delhi. Arora also told the media that the additional secretary will handle any additional deployment of officials on poll duty.

According to the CEC, total electors in the final electoral roll of Delhi are 1,46,92,136 and polling will be held at 13,750 polling stations. The term of the current Delhi Assembly ends on February 22 and a new House has to be constituted before that. 

In the 2015 Delhi assembly election, Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had performed superbly to win 67 out of the total 70 seats at stake. The BJP had won only three seats, while the Congress had failed to open its account. The 2020 assembly election will witness a three-cornered fight between the AAP, BJP and Congress.

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Delhi had witnessed an election in December 2013 too where no party managed to secure a majority. The BJP was the single-largest with 31 seats, AAP a close second with 28 and the Congress was blown away with only eight seats in its kitty. After a brief period of uncertainty and with the BJP refusing to form a government as it did not have the majority along with its ally - the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) which had one MLA - the AAP under Arvind Kejriwal's chief ministership staked claim with the outside support of Congress.

Kejriwal resigned after 49 days in power and the Delhi Assembly was kept in suspended animation and President's Rule imposed. The next assembly election was held on February 7, 2015, and the result was declared three days later. However, in 2014 as well as the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP had swept all the seven constituencies of Delhi.

While BJP is banking on the strong showing in the Lok Sabha election just eight months ago, the AAP is claiming the development initiatives by the Arvind Kejriwal government will result in the party retaining power. AAP had on December 20, 2019, launched its Delhi assembly election campaign with the slogan "Achhe beete 5 saal, lage raho Kejriwal".

BJP is yet to name its chief ministerial candidate while the Congress has brought in Subhash Chopra as its party chief in Delhi. Chopra was a three-time MLA from Kalkaji Assembly constituency. He had won in 1998, 2003 and 2008.