Delhi gears up for Wednesday's Assembly polls

A single phase election for the Delhi State Assembly will be held on Wednesday (December 4).

Candidates in the fray will vying to win one of the 70 assembly constituency seats up for grabs.

In all, 66,11,362 males, 53,20,705 females, 4509 service and six NRI voters will be exercising their right to vote in tomorrow's elections.

In all, 1,19,36,582 voters will be exercising their franchise.

The number of types of assembly constituencies are 58 in the general category; 12 in Scheduled Caste category, non in Scheduled Tribe category.

In all, 810 candidates will be contesting the polls for the 70 assembly seats, including 70 female candidates.

The Burari Assembly constituency will witness 23 Candidates contesting against each other, while the Patel Nagar assembly constituency will witness only four candidates in the fray.

The Bhartiya Janata Party is fielding 68 candidates in the polls, while the Bahujan Samaj Party is fielding 69. The Communist Party of India (CPI) will field ten candidates, while the Communist Party of India (Marxist) will field three candidates.

The Indian National Congress will field 70 candidates, while the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will field nine candidates.

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has said that it will field two candidates, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has announced that it will field 70 candidates.

About 509 Independents plus others will contest the polls.

Narela is the largest assembly constituency in terms of area at 143.42 square kilomters.

The largest assembly constituency in terms of the size of the electorate is Vikas Puri at 2,82,632.

The smallest assembly constituency electorate wise is Delhi Cantt. At 85,821.

The number of general, expenditure, police and awareness observers deployed is as follows: General (70), Expenditure (18), Police and awareness observers (5)

Voting will take place in 11, 763 polling stations across the national capital in 11,963 EVMs.

Three parties - the BJP, the Congress and the AAP-have big stakes in the December 4 assembly elections in Delhi. The triangular fight makes Delhi the most interesting among all the assembly poll battles this season.

According to experts, it will not be easy for the BJP or the AAP to topple or ignore Sheila Dikshit and her Congress Party's achievements for the city over the last 15 years.

The veteran chief minister of Delhi has a reputation as an administrator, which has helped her to continue in power for 15 years. The average citizen of Delhi will have little reason to equate a tainted government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with the effective government of Dikshit in Delhi.

There is a view that both the BJP and the AAP are promoting a brand of negative politics, which might just help the Congress to retain power in the state for a fourth consecutive five-year term.

The BJP on the other hand still needs to come up with a credible alternative to Dikshit. The opposition party seems to be banking on Narendra Modi's popularity too much for the Delhi polls.

At best, it may just be able to improve on its stagnant vote-share in Delhi this time.

The AAP has made a number of promises, but the voter may just ask how many of them it can fullfill.

There is no doubt that the AAP is the dark horse this election season.

The party so far has seen a fairy tale run but only till the time of election. The AAP will certainly make history if it even comes close to power within just a year of formation.

It is bedevilled with inexperience, though a majority of the people would be silently praying for its win in the polls.