The Hindu : New Delhi News : Parties drift between hope and despair

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Tuesday, Dec 02, 2008
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New Delhi

Parties drift between hope and despair

Staff Reporter

Keeping fingers crossed after their fate is sealed in EVMs

Delhi BJP chief Harsh Vardhan confident of party winning over 45 seats
Congress camp apprehensive of the fall-out of the Mumbai terror attacks

NEW DELHI: With the fate of candidates for 69 of the 70 Delhi Assembly seats now sealed in the electronic voting machines, for all the party workers and candidates it is now a long wait till the results are announced on December 8.

Feedback

On Monday, the BJP decided to take a feedback from its candidates on how the elections had progressed. Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan said the party was now certain of winning over 45 seats.

At the meeting, the party candidates informed senior functionaries about the issues that had mattered and the problems if any they would have encountered. All the candidate, Dr. Vardhan said, had come over for the interaction.

In the Congress camp, meantime, the candidates and workers appear to be drifting between hope and despair. A recent survey that had not taken into account the impact of the Mumbai terror attack had given the party a glimmer of hope that it would come back to power for a record third consecutive term.

But with the turnout being large in the urban and elite areas in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, there is a lot of apprehension that public anger might harm the interest of the Congress that is ruling both at the Centre and in Maharashtra.

“The Mumbai attack has really upset all calculations. Otherwise the BJP and the Congress were having 30 seats each with only the decision on the remaining 10 being the deciding factor. But even now we are hopeful of forming a Government,” said a party office-bearer, adding that ultimately people of Delhi would have voted for development and nothing else.

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