Former Indian cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir on Thursday is set to win from the East Delhi seat for the BJP in the Lok Sabha Elections, defeating Arvinder Singh Lovely of Congress and Atishi of the Aam Aadmi Party, who was the former advisor to New Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia.
The East Delhi seat is seeing a comfortable victory for the 37-year-old BJP candidate with 6,86,803 votes polled by 6.30 pm. So far, Gambhir has secured 55.35% votes, compared to Arvinder who got 24.3% of the votes, while Atishi was third with 17.3% of the votes. The margin of leads for Gambhir was 3,85,700 votes. This was the first election for both Atishi and Gambhir.
In 2014, the BJP had swept the state, winning all the seven seats in the national capital. This year too, BJP candidates are leading in all seven seats.
The East Delhi constituency, which voted in the sixth phase of the general elections on May 12, saw a bitter and vitriolic election campaign between Gambhir and Atishi.
On May 9, AAP candidate Atishi broke down during a press conference where she and her party accused BJP rival Gambhir of circulating derogatory pamphlets about her. The document made vile comments on Atishi’s character, calling her a “mixed breed” and a “prostitute”.
Denying the charge against him, Gambhir said that he would withdraw his nomination if Atishi's accusations were proven correct. He also accused the Aam Aadmi Party of circulating the pamphlet and blaming it on him. A day later, he filed a defamation suit against AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Atishi and Manish Sisodia.
The next day, the AAP sent a legal notice to the BJP and its East Delhi candidate Gautam Gambhir over the derogatory pamphlet circulated in the constituency.
Before the controversy over the pamphlet, Gambhir's nomination was held up due to objections raised by Atishi who said there were technical errors in his affidavit. She had alleged that he held voter IDs from two Assembly constituencies. The Election Commission rejected Atishi’s complaint.