Delhi Assembly Elections on February 5, results 3 days later

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced at a press conference on Tuesday that Delhi will have single-phase polling on February 5 and that the counting of votes will be done on February 8.

The last date for filing of nominations is on January 17 and that of withdrawal of candidature is on January 20.

Of the total 1.55 crore voters, there are 83.49 lakh male and 71.74 lakh female voters in Delhi. Of the 70 constituencies, 12 are set aside for Scheduled Castes.

Replying to a question about the possibility of the Central government's budget (on February 1) offering an unfair advantage to the ruling party as it would coincide with the election campaign, Kumar clarified that the Commission will make sure that there are no budgetary pronouncements specifically targeting the Delhi electorate.

In the last assembly election, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led by Arvind Kejriwal had swept the polls winning 62 out of the 70 seats with a 53.57% vote share. BJP was limited to 8 seats with a vote share of 38.51%, while Congress failed to open its account in the national capital.

Campaigning in Delhi has already started with Arvind Kejriwal releasing the party's election anthem X on Tuesday.

The BJP has been constantly targeting Arvind Kejriwal over various allegations including Delhi liquor policy scandal and also for splurging public money on the CM's residence. The BJP has accused Kejriwal of spending over ₹80 crore of public money on renovating the CM's residence. PM Modi also criticised the AAP government terming its tenure "AAPda" (disaster).

Congress too has trained its guns on the AAP, releasing a video on the expensive gadgets at the CM's residence; and it hopes to gain from the slanging match between the AAP and the BJP.