24 switch sides, 9 win: BJP makes most of defectors

NEW DELHI: Bets placed by 15 of the 24 candidates who switched parties before contesting the Delhi assembly elections didn't pan out, but BJP gained the most from former AAP and Congress names in the capital's three-cornered fight.
The most prominent among defectors was Kailash Gahlot, who was the minister for administrative reforms in the AAP govt, till he switched allegiance to BJP last year.
Gahlot, who previously represented Najafgarh constituency as an AAP MLA, contested from Bijwasan this time and won by 11,276 votes over his nearest rival Surender Bhardwaj (AAP).
After his win, Gahlot said, "Delhi has reposed its faith in the vision of PM Modi. Bijwasan has pressing issues like water shortages and sewer infrastructure. I will ensure these are fixed."
Other victories came from senior Congress faces who joined BJP.
Arvinder Singh Lovely, the former Delhi Congress chief, left the 'grand old' party after disagreements over ticket distribution.
Lovely, who had opposed Congress's decision to field Kanhaiya Kumar from the capital in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, won Gandhi Nagar this election by a margin of 12,748 votes. AAP's Naveen Chaudhary came in second.
It was three-time Congress MLA from Jangpura, Tarvinder Singh Marwah, who defeated former deputy CM and Arvind Kejriwal's trusted second-in-command Manish Sisodia, this time as a BJP contestant.
Though Marwah's lead over Sisodia concluded at just 675 votes, this victory is a symbolic one for BJP. Marwah exited Congress in 2022 after publicly complaining that he was not given time for a meeting by the Congress high command.
In Chhatarpur, it was a battle of defectors, which tilted in favour of AAP-turned-BJP politician Kartar Singh Tanwar. He trumped Brahm Singh Tanwar, who had gone the other way around.
Pravesh Ratn was one of the only two politicians who went from BJP to AAP, and won. He clinched the Patel Nagar reserved seat for the Kejriwal-led party, defeating AAP defector Raaj Kumar Anand.
The only other BJP defector to win as an AAP candidate was Anil Jha, who secured the Kirari constituency.
Of those to lose the polls were several AAP members who moved to the Congress. These included Asim Ahmad Khan (Matia Mahal), Devender Sehrawat (Bijwasan), Abdul Rehman (Seelampur), Mohammad Ishraque (Babarpur) and Adarsh Shastri (Dwarka).
Those who went the other way, from Congress to AAP, didn't make headway either - Sumesh Shokeen (Matiala) and Mukesh Goel (Adarsh Nagar), for instance.
Still, the Aam Aadmi Party can take heart that not all was lost.
Among them was Priyanka Gautam, who could not wrest SC-reserved Kondli constituency for the BJP from AAP's Kuldeep Kumar, though he won by a lower margin this election. In 2020, Kumar had a lead of almost 18,000 votes over his nearest rival.
Gautam is a sitting councillor who won the 2022 MCD polls on an AAP ticket.
A big downer for AAP was from Timarpur, a constituency it has won the last three Delhi polls it contested.
Surinder Pal Singh, who was earlier in both Congress and BJP, had held the seat in 2003 and 2008.
He moved to AAP last Dec, but could not clinch a victory from Timarpur.
The seasoned politician lost to BJP's Surya Prakash Khatri by just 1,168 votes in a contest overshadowed by allegations that 30,000 voter slips were found at a scrap dealer's shop.