The Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said here today that the SAD performance in the just concluded assembly elections in Delhi had shown an improvement over the previous elections, in terms of both vote-share and the number of votes polled by the party's candidates. "The sole reason for this increase not being converted into seats was the transfer of all Congress votes to the AAP, disturbing poll arithmetic in other constituencies, including those contested by the SAD, and giving AAP a huge jump at the expense of the Congress, "said Mr. Badal in a statement here this afternoon.Mr. Badal said that so complete was the Congress surrender to the AAP that more than 60 Congress candidates lost their security deposits,clearly proving an en masse shift of Congress votes to AAP.
"The AAP is a beneficiary of the decimation of the Congress party rather than the comparative showing of the BJP and the SAD, both of which had recorded increase in vote share. This is the one lesson that must not be lost of in arriving at any conclusions on the Delhi poll results." "But of course we do not mean to undermine the victory of the AAP. We extend whole-hearted congratulations and best wishes to the AAP and its architect Mr. Arvind Kejriwal for their impressive showing. We accept the verdict of the people of Delhi in all humility.
The Chief Minister however said that "and he and his party were grateful to Delhi's voters that even in this wave, the SAD's core vote bank has stayed intact and has actually registered an improvement over our showing in the last elections, though for reasons of demographic arithmetics, this is not reflected in the number of seats won," said the CM. Likewise, said Mr. Badal, the overall vote share of BJP has also marginally increased from 33 percent to 34 percent.
The Chief Minister also thanked the leaders, office bearers, workers and rank and file of the party, including those from Punjab, for working tirelessly to carry the pro-people development oriented message of the party to the masses, which is reflected in the increase in our vote share. “People’s verdict in democracy is always supreme and all of us respect it”. The Chief Minister said that the party's high command would meet soon to study the details and meaning of the verdict and consider ways to further improving the party's bonds with the people.