Delhi heads for election

Delhi is set for a fresh electoral battle after leaders of the BJP, Congress and AAP told Lt Governor Najeeb Jung that they wanted elections to end months of political uncertainty. Leaders of the three political parties told Jung that fresh balloting was needed as no party was in a position to form the government in the hung 70 member assembly.
A Raj Bhavan statement said Jung would be writing to President Pranab Mukherjee giving his recommendations. He is most likely to suggest fresh election -the second since December last year -which threw up a fractured mandate with BJP refusing to form the government despite winning 31 seats.
The Aam Aadmi Party came a close second with 28 seats in an electoral performance that took the nation by surprise, and formed a minority government with Congress backing. However, the government collapsed after 49 days as chief minister Arvind Kejriwal resigned after failing to get the Jan Lokpal Bill passed.Kejriwal, who later lost the Lok Sabha election in Varanasi to PM Narendra Modi, said he had erred by quitting.
A BJP delegation led by its Delhi president Satish Upadhyay was the first to meet Jung on Monday.
BJP made no public statement after the meeting, but sources said BJP wanted a fresh election in Delhi, which has been under President's rule since February. Sources added they expect polls by February 2015.
Congress MLA Haroon Yusuf also told Jung that his party wanted the Delhi assembly dissolved, followed by fresh elections. “We will contest the election under the guidance of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, and development will be our main agenda,“ he said.
The AAP, which has repeatedly accused BJP of trying to poach its legislators to form the government in Delhi, reiterated that it wanted a new election. AAP leader Manish Sisodia, who was accompanied by Kejriwal at the meeting with Jung, said, “Our stand is what it was eight months ago. We want the Delhi assembly to be dissolved. If BJP wanted fresh elections, why did they create all this suspense for all these months?“ The December 2013 election led to a three-way battle in Delhi, with the Congress -which had ruled the capital for 15 long years -left with just eight seats. The Lok Sabha polls brought down BJP's strength in the assembly from 31 to 28 as three legislators were elected to parliament. The AAP now has 27 legislators after one revolted early on.