It's a 3-way race in India's capital

While both BJP and AAP are in a buoyant mood, Congress faces a wave of anti-incumbency amid corruption allegations.

NEW DELHI: The country’s capital goes to the polls in a high-stakes race that will see 12 million Delhiites deciding the fate of Delhi’s -- and the nation’s -- three main political parties: Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

The day-long polls to elect Delhi’s seven representatives in the Lok Sabha began at 7 am and goes on till 6 this evening. A total of 150 candidates are running, including 57 independents.

With the emergence of the upstart AAP, which became the second largest party in Delhi after December’s state assembly elections in the city, the battle has become more interesting and more open, with the future of all three political parties, at least in the capital, uncertain.

Congress won all seven constituencies in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, but it is likely that this time round it may lose all seven.

While both BJP and AAP are in a buoyant mood, Congress is facing a wave of anti-incumbency amid allegations of corruption during its decade-long rule.

One of the more interesting contests today is in the constituency of Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi, where Congress’s top brass and sitting Member of Parliament (MP) Kapil Sibal will face a tough fight from BJP’s Dr Harshavardhan and former journalist Ashutosh from the AAP.

Harshvardhan has never lost an election in his life, while the other candidates also enjoy formidable popular support.

The BJP has been invigorated by its controversial prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. The party benefits what many refer to as the “Modi wave”, attracting a lot of first time voters that are enamoured by his campaign promise of better governance. These new voters are flanked by his traditional constituency of conservative Hindu voters.

But the AAP is not to be taken lightly. It is also fielding the candidates from similar castes as their constituencies, making the race more competitive. Congress’s conventional voters -- the minorities and the middle class -- now seem to be split between Congress and the AAP.

In East Delhi, which accounts for 30-35 per cent of Delhi’s Muslims, voters rejected Congress and most of them voted for AAP in the state assembly elections. It is likely that they will vote in a similar fashion in today’s polls.

Though Delhi is a cosmopolitan city, caste and religion play important roles in daily and electoral life. Perhaps that is why AAP has fielded a Sikh candidate from West Delhi which has a large Sikh population. To woo the immigrants of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh largely concentrated in North-East Delhi, the BJP has fielded singer and Bhojpuri icon Manoj Tiwari.

The BJP, which was the largest single party in last year’s state elections, believes that with Modi at the helm it will pull more voters than ever before, especially with his economic track record in his home state of Gujarat. But the party has an image of being communal and Narendra Modi’s alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots does not endear many Muslims and secularists.

The trio has spent heavily on advertisements and they have plastered the city with their posters.

Battling it out on the streets, former Delhi chief-minister Arvind Kejriwal has been slapped twice during his road-shows. Scenes like this have somehow brought more sympathy for AK-49, as he is infamously known for his 49-day tenure as chief minister of Delhi after the state elections.

Though it just accounts for 7 seats, all eyes are on the capital today.