NEW DELHI: The Rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday won five of the seven parliamentary seats in the Indian capital, improving on its tally of four seats in the 1989 general elections.
The BJP scored a comfortable victory in the cast Delhi constituency as its nominee, B L Sharma snatched the seat from the Congress (I) leader and former union minister Mr H K L Bhagat by a margin of over 61,000 votes.
The Congress (I) managed to notch up victories in outer Delhi and Delhi Sadar seats by convincing margins.
Sajjan Kumar of the Congress (I) who lost the outer Delhi seat to the Janata Dal in 1984 surged ahead after initial setbacks and defeated the BJP nominee Saheb Singh Verma by 85,000 votes, biggest margin of victory on any of the seven seats in this year’s mid-term elections.
While the Congress (I) squandered away the two seats it held in the 1989 elections, the party managed to win Delhi Sadar and outer Delhi seats this time, wresting the seats from the BJP and the Janata Dal respectively.
The BJP raced to victory on New Delhi, Karol Bagh, Chandni Chowk, South Delhi seats and captured the East Delhi seat as result from the constituency came in late Monday evening.
BJP Stalwart and former party president L K Advani, who also won from Gandlinagar in Gujarat, managed to scrape through in New Delhi by a slender margin of 1598 votes.
The BJP leader was given a tough fight by cine-star and political debutant Rajesh Khanna, who was fielded by the Congress-I.
BJP’s Kalka Dass retained the Karol Bagh seat, scoring a narrow victory by 2,500 votes over his nearest Congress-I rival Krishna Tirath.
The BJP also snatched the Chandni Chowk seat from the Congress-I when its nominee Tara Chand Khandelwal defeated J P Aggarwal by 2774 votes.
Delhi Sadar seat was wrested by former union minister Jagdish Tytler of the Congress-I from his BJP rival V K Malhotraby 14,091 votes.
BJP leader and former Delhi unit president of the party Madan Lal Khurana retained his south Delhi seat with a reduced margin of about 50,000 votes as compared to the 1989 polls. He defeated Romesh Bhandari, a former foreign secretary and Delhi Lt Governor, who was put up by Congress-I.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 21, 1991
