 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. This is a roundup of MCD elections 2017. I am Sonali and we are joined by my colleague Pranjal. So Pranjal, what are the results of MCD elections? Yes, Sonali, we need to have a look at the trends that we had by 3 o'clock and BJP has clearly won all the 3 MCDs which are there in Delhi, North, South and East. So let us have a look at the total number of seats that we have 270 seats. We have 272 seats in Delhi, 2 candidates passed away so their elections have been postponed. Out of those 270 seats BJP seems to be leading as 180 seats, ARP is on 46 seats, Congress 28 and others have around 10 seats. So let us break it up into the 3 different municipal corporations. The first is obviously the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, North MCD where BJP, it has total 103 seats, BJP has got 68 seats out of that, 14 has gone to Congress 19-2, Amadmi party, others have gained around 2 seats. The South MCD has around 104 seats, BJP has 70 seats in that, Congress 11-17, others have 6 seats. The other one is East Delhi MCD which has the least number of seats, it is 63 seats they have, Congress has 3 seats in that, ARP 10, others have 2 and BJP seems to be leading in that also with 48 seats. Let us have a look at the vote share of these 3 parties, mainly Congress BJP and ARP. BJP is 36.73% or close to 37%. We have Amadmi party which is around 26% and Congress seems to have gained, it was at 9% in assembly elections but now it has got around 21% so say there is a 12% rise in Congress vote share. There is a major vote swing that has taken place, that is what we are witnessing. What according to you is behind the sweep of votes? See I mean everybody knows the things that Amadmi party has done in Delhi, be it 50% in the electricity fairs, free water, slum for the slum dwellers, the RANBASERAS, MAHULA clinics, hospitals, schools and the list goes on. They have lot of problems also, they have been dealing with the internal conflicts, Yoganriyada formed a separate party altogether. But one cannot deny that they have done a major chunk of work that they promised in their election manifesto, manifesto leave aside the wifi part and all. What I find is that BJP has been successfully able to draw this narrative that it's the ARP which is running the MCD not the BJP though they have been in the municipal cooperation for last 10 years. But the narrative that they have drawn is that it's the Amadmi party which is running these MCDs, they haven't done any work in the MCDs, it's very evident that there was a massive corruption in MCD, BJP workers have not done anything and that's one among the reasons why BJP was forced to withdraw their sitting councillors and give seats to give tickets to most of the new people but still they have got the majority. If you follow the social media, the election campaign that comes on the radio and on different channels, on the ground campaign, UP, Congress, Swaraj Abhyan for that in that case they were not at all visible. While BJP was everywhere, the people were on the ground, they were doing do-to-do campaign, they were doing on radio, if you look at the radio campaigns, all the things that Amadmi party has done be it mall, clinics, hospitals, schools, they were claiming the credit for that. So obviously this has played an important role in their massive victory. Amadmi party couldn't show themselves as an alternative to the people, they couldn't counter the narrative that BJP was drawing against it. That's one among the other important reasons why they seem to have suffered. Also obviously UP elections have an impact on the Delhi municipal corporation elections seeing that a majority of the population in Delhi comes from UP and Bihar, the working class population especially. There could be communal polarization on the lines of, there could be communal polarization, the entire issue of nationalism, the hyper nationalism that they have been creating. This could have also played an important role, one cannot directly comment on that, but if that would have been the case then the areas populated by Muslims, UP seems to have lost those places also, Congress has made a comeback there. So it's clearly that UP has not been able to counter the narrative, they have been on this rant continuously that the left-hand governor is not letting them work, the central government is forcing them to follow their dictates, they are not letting them do their work, but that has not helped them clearly. People want to see them as an alternative, not as someone who is always complaining and they have always been complaining. There have also been questions on the party structures, democracy within the party, many people have quit, said Irwin Kejriwal, the elections have been raised on Irwin Kejriwal's functioning also. So it's surprisingly, for the 10 years MCD has been ruled by BJP, but still they have been able to convince people that you were voting for lotus means you are voting for change. So that's the case right now. So once again after the results are out, EVMs have been blamed. So do you think that these are reliable claims? See, we already had discussed this issue when the assembly election results had come out. It involves a huge machinery in it, until unless all the people, different polling agents, different officers, different political parties are involved all together to temper an EVM, only an EVM then only it can be done. So I don't think that's the case that Congress and UP would, their polling agents would go on the ground and ally with BJP and let them temper the EVM because it's a lengthy process, they cross check it, they once check it whether the vote is going right or not, they check the seals, officers are there and it's a random sampling method that takes place, the election commission decides that. So instead of blaming EVMs, if it's better one looks at their own functioning, what they have been able to do on the ground, have they been able to counter that narrative of BJP which they have been drawing, it would be a better way to deal with this loss rather than claiming that EVMs were tempered, that's why they lost. If EVMs would have been tempered then Congress would have not made this big gain of 12%, they would have not won in Punjab, they would have not won in Goa, Manipur, they were the biggest parties. If we look at the pattern in recent years, wherever BJP is winning, it's their narrative, their campaign, the way they channelize everything, it has a huge part in their winning. Do you think our electoral politics has gone into a different era where management of an election campaign can actually win an election? Yes and no. Actually see, there's no counter to the ground mobilization, there's no counter to the movements on the ground. You can't deny even if BJP has been very offensive on the social media, they've used WhatsApp very efficiently but they also have RSS on the ground which is continuously working for them. So you can't deny that, they are going door to door doing campaigns, RSS machineries on the streets working for BJP while other parties have completely failed to do that. But yes, social media campaign plays a very important role in current context. I mean they have been able to create a cult around the prime minister and then every elections they are going for. So today you see the results, all the BJP leaders are saying that people have voted for Modi and his policies. So they have been successfully able to do that. They have created a cult around the prime minister Modi and they are asking votes on that basis and it's the youth which is voting for them. They have been able to penetrate in that section even though they have not created jobs, they haven't provided employment, demonetization had a massive impact but still the narrative which they want to draw, they are drawing it very successfully only because of the social media but obviously RSS is on the ground, you cannot deny that and one should not deny that if you want to build an opposition to the BJP for coming elections be it Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha. So this was the roundup of MCD elections 2017. This is all the time we have today at NewsClick. Thank you for joining us.