“Jarnail Singh ucchi udaan lekar Punjab bagh  gaye the ( Jarnail Singh [AAP MLA] ran away to Punjab to contest the assembly election there),” said 60-year-old Rajinder Singh outside the Rajouri Garden counting centre in Delhi. “Aaj Rajouri Garden ne wo udaan khatam kar di (Today, Rajouri Garden [results] ended that flight).” Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Harjeet Singh could not even save his security deposit in the Rajouri Garden by-poll. AAP supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s strategy to make sitting legislator Jarnail Singh resign and contest the elections against Punjab CM Prakash Singh Badal in the Punjab polls has back-fired. As a result of this desperate gamble, AAP not only lost a seat to its arch rival, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but has also revived the Congress Party’s hopes in Delhi. Notably, the civic polls in Delhi are scheduled for April 23. This result is set to boost the morale of both the BJP and the Congress’ rank and file.

From the very beginning, the fight in Rajouri Garden constituency being seen as a contest between BJP’s Manjinder Singh Sirsa and Congress’ Meenakshi Chandela. Eventually, the result was no different. Sirsa polled 40,602 votes, clinching the assembly by a massive margin of 14,652 votes. Chandela, who was holding her own till the eighth round of counting, got 25,950 votes. AAP’s Singh managed to get only 13.12 per cent votes, that is, 10,243 votes. Notably, AAP was trailing in all 17 rounds of counting. Possibly indicative of the fact that Kejriwal’s core constituency – the slum residents who carried him to power the first time–also went to the Congress and BJP.

Soon after the results, Sirsa said, “these votes were not only for BJP and our Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hard work but it is also a mandate against the AAP government.” Surrounded by supporters, Sirsa added, “he [Kejriwal] has been accusing PM Modi of not allowing AAP-led Delhi government to function properly. However, he had money to spend on advertisements, Rs 4 crores to pay his legal bill, Rs 1 crore for his samosas. But he felt the problems only when it came to working for the people of Delhi.”

Sirsa has been a long time Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and was first elected as a municipal councillor in 2007 from Punjabi Bagh ward. In the 2013 assembly polls, Sirsa won from Rajouri Garden assembly seat on the SAD ticket. However, 14 months later he lost to AAP’s Jarnail Singh in the 2015 assembly polls. “Today massive victory is the result of his (Sirsa) hard work in past and his face value. He lost in 2015 only because of the AAP wave,” 34-year old Inderpreet Singh, general secretary of SAD-West Delhi, told Newslaundry.

BJP MP Parvesh Verma with newly elected BJP legislator Majinder Singh. 

BJP fielded Sirsa, who also happens to be the richest Delhi legislator, as its own candidate. The strategy was to exploit SAD and Sirsa’s vote bank and add a tadka of BJP’s winning spree to it. Sirsa alone polled 51.99 per cent of the total votes polled in the by-election 78,091. BJP West Delhi MP, Parvesh Verma told Newslaundry, “this is a victory of BJP and Akali Dal and CM of Delhi [Kejriwal] should resign now.” He further added that the hard work of the workers had ensured the huge margin of victory.

Verma, confident of the saffron party’s victory in upcoming civic polls, further added, “we will get more than 240 seats in MCD elections.”

Meanwhile, Chandela’s father-in-law and Congress leader Dayanand Chandela had rushed out of the counting centre even before the counting ended. He claimed that the voters’ list was rigged and demanded a re-election.

However, the AAP camp seemed to expect this loss. They conceded defeat without crying foul or questioning the electronic voting machines (EVMs) this time. AAP leader and deputy CM Manish Sisodia said the party was observing the by-poll and was aware that the voters were angry with the party for sending Rajouri MLA Singh to Punjab.

“Up-chunav ke natize ka dillli nagar nigam ke chunav se koi talukh nahi hain. Nagar chunav ke mudde alag hain (The by-poll results have nothing to do with MCD elections. The issues of MCD are completely different)”  adding, “AAP poori majbooti se nigam chunav lad rahi hai (AAP is fighting the civic polls with full strength.)” AAP has maintained that it is confident of victory in the civic polls. However, this is the best AAP can wish for right now. It’s fetish for misadventure has wrought this debacle upon the party.

Considering today’s result one should expect an interesting and intense contest between the three parties in the run for MCDs.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @amit_bhardwaz.