Punters Bet Big On Bjp - Delhi

[jpismahatma]

With only one day left for the Battle of Delhi, India's ruling party seems to have given up, the party that recently ruled Delhi for 49 days seems to have slipped, and the party that got the largest number of seats in the December 2013 Assembly elections seems headed for victory. The lotus is set to bloom amid Delhi's tectonic shift from bipolar to triangular contests.

 

Thursday will be a very big day for AAP. Delhi's triangular fights could well decide the future of the party in national politics. AAP, despite its strong showing in the Assembly polls, is in troubled waters after its 49-day debacle in Delhi. Recent opinion polls have shown the Congress recapturing a substantial part of the voteshare it lost in the Assembly elections to the Kejriwal-led outfit. A poor AAP show could send the new party relentlessly downhill. Anything less than three seats will be bad news indeed for AAP.

 

AAP's Rakhi Birla with party senior Arvind Kejriwal at a rally on Tuesday, the last day of campaigning in Delhi for the elections.

The Congress, Delhi's 7-0 winner of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, has had a strong hold in all parliamentary constituencies of the Capital but could face the ignominy of being placed third in some. If the Assembly poll results are anything to go by, the Congress found a stiff opponent in AAP - a party it had grossly downplayed in December. The writing is on the wall now: the Congress would do well to get one seat in the Capital, and two or more would be a miracle.

 

The BJP's Delhi candidates are the happiest lot, confidently riding the "Modi wave". All seven BJP candidates have been conducting intensive campaigns to woo voters, mostly in prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's name. So much so that while seeking votes, they have urged voters to vote for Modi. Streets across the Capital are awash with hoardings of Modi; the BJP seems to have tonnes of publicity material. Keeping in mind prevalent caste equations and voting patterns across Delhi, the party has fielded relatively popular faces from all constituencies except the New Delhi and East Delhi seats - where party spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi and Maheish Girri are the candidates respectively.

Considering that the Congress is already suffering from an antiincumbency feeling and a general negative sentiment across Delhi, most of BJP's campaigns have been a direct attack on AAP. From door-to-door campaigns to street plays, the BJP has gone all out to break AAP's spell in all its perceived strongholds. To break the myth of Muslim voters being marginalised, BJP patriarch L.K. Advani went all out and addressed a gathering at Chandni Chowk - which has a 15 per cent Muslim voter base.

 

JNU professor Anand Kumar holds court among AAP supporters in battleground North East Delhi.

Oddly enough, the Congress - across the board - has been busy discounting AAP's and BJP's presence in the Capital this time round while letting its own campaign lose steam. While veterans such as Sibal, Sandeep Dikshit and J.P. Agarwal have been conducting brief padyatras and corner meetings - even on the final day of canvassing on Tuesday - the response has been far from enthusiastic.

 

Likewise, Krishna Tirath, the Congress candidate from Northwest Delhi, has largely been twiddling her thumbs in her constituency. Unlike any of them, it is New Delhi's sitting MP Ajay Maken who has received an enthusiastic response from people in his constituency. "This anti-incumbency is ridiculous and insignificant. The people will vote for the Congress because we have worked tirelessly over the last 10 years," said Maken.

With its image tarnished thanks to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government's disastrous exit in just 49 days, AAP's candidates have been on a tightrope walk. Their roadshows received a less than enthusiastic response from people, as opposed to the campaign for the Assembly polls, and the party now seems to be gaining political mileage and sympathy only from repeated attacks on its leader Kejriwal. While these attacks are being perceived as a backlash from the public over AAP's abysmal performance in Delhi, the party tried its best to play a more patriotic card by fielding Mahatma Gandhi's great grandson - Rajmohan Gandhi - from East Delhi constituency. In their effort to connect with locals, many AAP candidates released local manifestos for their constituencies.

Capital's punters bet big on BJP

Delhi's bookies are predicting a clear majority for the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and a virtual rout for the Congress and newbie AAP. They do not, however, expect the party to form the government on its own.

 

BJP's Navjot Singh Sidhu & Dr Harsh Vardhan wield swords during a roadshow for the latter in Chandni Chowk.

The prevalent rates indicate that the odds are stacked in favour of the BJP's 'star' prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi, with some bookies prophesying that his party will net 220 of the Lok Sabha's 543 seats. The Congress, they said, would be reduced to a share of 65.

 

In fact, according to betting trends, Modi is the only one whose chances seem to have strengthened over the last month where those for his rivals have remained more or less stagnant. In early March, the rate for the BJP's victory was 20 paise to a rupee. This has now reached 10 paise. For the BJP's prospects at netting a share of 220, punters had, in early March again, fixed the stakes at 20 paise to a rupee - they are now offering 15 paise to a rupee for the bet, sources said.

 

 

In the betting market, the lower the returns promised, the more popular is a given party considered to be. Vis-à-vis Delhi, punters expect the BJP to ride anti-incumbency to clinch four of the Capital's seven seats. According to them, the Congress, which made a clean sweep in Delhi in 2009, will win only two.

Read more at:http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/delhi-polls-modi-wave-arvind-kejriwal-aap-bjp-congress/1/353648.html

[jpismahatma]