AAP's Reshma won from east Delhi's Maujpur seat with 9,374 votes, defeating Congress candidate Rekha Sharma by a small margin of 699 votes
Weeks after the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) sweeping victory in the municipal elections, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress, on Tuesday, managed to clinch one seat each in Maujpur and Sarai Pipal Thala constituencies, respectively, where bypolls were held earlier this month.
AAP's Reshma won from east Delhi's Maujpur seat with 9,374 votes, defeating Congress candidate Rekha Sharma by a small margin of 699 votes. Congress leader and former Leader of Opposition (LOP) in north corporation, Mukesh Goel, bagged the Sarai Pipal Thala ward with 10,946 votes, defeating BJP candidate Mangat Ram Sharma, who got 8,203 votes. The State Election Commission (SEC) declared the bypoll results in the morning.
Talking about Maujpur, Reshma, 32, a former teacher, said: "The area has major issues, including heaps of garbage, overflowing sewers, and poor infrastructure in municipal schools. These problems will be my priority. We will work in cooperation with the ruling party." The seat was earlier held by BJP's Sanjay Jain, who had won the ward in 2012 municipal elections with 12,652 votes.
Goel has been two-time councillor from the Dhirpur ward, which was declared reserved for women after the recent delimitation. Sarai Pipal Thala was carved out as a ward during this delimitation exercise, from where Goel was given the ticket this time.
Hailing Goel's victory, senior Congress leader and AICC in-charge P C Chacko said: "The Congress vote share increased in both wards. Goel received 44.10 per cent of the total votes polled. The Congress vote share during the 2015 Assembly elections was a mere 9.5 per cent, which went up to 39 per cent in the second phase of municipal polls."
Bypolls for these two wards had to be organised on May 16 and 21 after two SP candidates died before the elections were held on April 23. While Maujpur recorded 58 per cent polling, the voter turnout in Sarai Pipal Thala was 46.3 per cent.
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