NEW DELHI: A smart combination of social benefit schemes and freebies has successfully delivered the bulk of Delhi’s voters to Arvind Kejriwal in the Assembly polls held on Saturday.
With most exit polls pointing towards the Aam Aadmi Party’s landslide victory, the IANS-CVOTER Exit Poll found that the ruling party was popular among all sections of the society in terms of occupation of the voters.
In the survey conducted on the polling day with 11,839 respondents, people from different occupational groups spoke heavily in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
General labourers weighed heavily towards the Arvind Kejriwal-led party. While 55 per cent of the respondents from this category said that they voted for AAP, 30.6 per cent went with the BJP and 9.6 per cent with the Congress.
The competition between the BJP and AAP intensified among landless agricultural laborers with 42.8 per cent of respondents voting for AAP, and 40 per cent for the BJP. The Congress cut a sorry figure here too, managing just 9.5 per cent of vote share.
Businessmen and self-employed voters, who were considered strong and loyal voter base for the BJP, were also seen shifting towards AAP, as 46 per cent of the respondents said they voted for the ruling party, while 38.6 per cent sided with BJP. Congress could manage just 11.1 per cent of the respondents’ support.
Women, minorities voters
Apart from these, majority of the other respondents like housewives, farmers, government officials and private sector employees tilted towards AAP, while the BJP remained a second preference.
As expected, women voters did not let down the AAP, which pampered them with welfare schemes such as free bus rides.
By the end of polling on Saturday, 50.6 per cent of women voted for AAP as compared to 36.2 per cent for its nearest rival BJP. Even among women voters, 51.6 per cent of housewives voted for AAP.
Apart from the freebies, polarisation over the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has also apparently helped mobilise Muslim votes in favour of AAP.
As much as 61 per cent of Muslims voted for the ruling party, leaving the traditional choice, the Congress, with just 14.5 per cent — lower than the BJP which managed to attract 18.9 per cent of votes from the minority community.
The results of Delhi Assembly polls will be announced on February 11.
As part of its poll promises, the AAP has offered a number of freebies to the people of Delhi. Schemes likes free power, WiFi, free bus rides for women and a host of other initiatives in the health and education sectors have endeared the party led by Arvind Kejriwal to the people of Delhi.
In 2015, the AAP had won 67 seats while the BJP bagged the remaining 3 seats.SOURCE: IANS