AAP wins Shaheen Bagh constituency of Okhla, other anti-CAA venues

Right from the early hours, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) took a comfortable lead over its closest rival BJP as the counting of votes for 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly got underway on Tuesday (February 11). According to the Election Commission, the overall voter turnout was 62.59% in the national capital that saw a triangular contest among the ruling AAP, BJP, and Congress.

Okhla: As of 11 am, in Okhla, which houses Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of the protests against the Citizenship Act, BJP’s Braham Singh was defeated by AAP’s sitting MLA Amanatullah Khan with a lead of 77080 votes.

Okhla constituency, which includes Shaheen Bagh, the hotbed of the anti-CAA protests in the capital where women have been on a sit-in for over 50 days, recorded a voter turnout of 58.8%, the election watchdog said. However, the AAP got a scare in the initial hours of counting as the BJP candidate got a slight lead. But the AAP candidate caught up soon and won with a fairly large margin.

Seelampur: This is another seat with a sizable Muslim population. The place had seen violence during anti-CAA protests on December 17, 2019. Here AAP’s Abdul Rehman won with a margin of 36,920 votes.

Seelampur recorded 71.22% voting. The Congress had won Seelampur seat for three consecutive elections – 2003, 2008 and 2013 – before AAP leader Mohd Ishraque clinched it by defeating BJP’s Sanjay Jain in 2015 by a margin of 27,887 votes. This time, AAP fielded Abdul Rehman against BJP’s Kaushal Kumar Mishra and Congress’ Chaudhary Mateen Ahmad.

Matia Mahal: In Matia Mahal, which also saw violence and arson, AAP’s Shoiab Iqbal won with a margin of 50,241 votes. In the last assembly elections, the seat was won by Asim Ahmed Khan of the AAP by a margin of 26,096 votes.