After garnering 28 seats in an impressive debut, the Aam Admi Party came close to scripting political history by finishing second in 20 of the 70-seat Assembly, losing some of them by only a narrow margin.

Of those 20, the new party conceded only two seats to the Congress while losing the remaining to the BJP.

While AAP’s candidate from the R. K. Puram seat, Shazia Ilmi missed the Assembly bus by a mere 326 votes to BJP’s Anil Kumar Sharma, it lost the Sultanpur Majra seat to Congress’ Jai Kishan by a little over 1,100 votes.

The crucial Rajinder Nagar seat saw Transport Minister Ramakant Goswami finishing in the third spot and AAP losing to the BJP by about 1,800 votes.

In Bijwasan, Dwaraka, Kalkaji and and Tri Nagar, the new party lost by a margin of 2,000—3,000 votes.

In South Delhi, the new entrant notched up Greater Kailash, Kasturba Nagar, Sangam Vihar, Ambedkar Nagar, Deoli, and gave a close fight to BJP’s Parvesh Sahib Singh, who toppled Speaker Yoganand Shastri from Mehrauli. AAP finished second here losing by a margin of 4,564 votes.

Constituted only a year back, the AAP surprised political pundits and trend-watchers by routing the Congress and thwarting BJP’s march toward getting the magic number of 36, thus throwing the city into a hung assembly.

Its party chief and New Delhi constituency’s candidate—elect Arvind Kejriwal stormed outgoing three—time Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s bastion, trouncing her by over 25,000 votes.

The rookie politician-led AAP finished in second spot, relegating the 127-year-old party to third position, fighting on the “pro-people” and “anti-corruption” poll plank.

The elections witnessed the AAP party giving a fright to the saffron party during counting, which riding on a strong anti-incumbency wave has emerged as the single largest party in Delhi and is forming Governments in three other States — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the results for which were announced yesterday.

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