Kejriwal elected leader of AAP legislative party

Hours after the Aam Aadmi Party made a clean sweep of the Delhi assembly polls, winning 67 of the 70 seats on offer, Arvind Kejriwal was unanimously elected as the leader of the legislative party.

According to reports, Kejriwal met Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung at the latter's official residence and conveyed the news. Jung will now send the report regarding the matter to President Pranab Mukherjee, allowing the AAP chief to stake claim towards government formation in the national capital.

"For the first time in history, such respect has been given to a party. Now it is our duty to respect the people's decision," AAP leader Manish Sisodia told the media after a meeting of the party's newly-elected MLAs.

"Arvind Kejriwal will take oath as chief minister on February 14 at the Ram Lila Maidan," he added.

The Aam Aadmi Party decimated both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress today to land absolute majority in the crucial assembly polls in the national capital.

The BJP, which was relying heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity and had also brought in former IPS officer Kiran Bedi as its chief ministerial candidate to counter Kejriwal, managed to secure just three seats.

The Congress, which ruled the national capital for 15 years up to 2013 and was trying to rebuild its lost ground in Delhi, failed to even open its account.

Kejriwal also beat his nearest rival, BJP's Nupur Sharma, by 31,583 votes in the New Delhi constituency.

The chief ministerial candidates of both the BJP and Congress lost to their Aam Aadmi Party rivals, with BJP's Kiran Bedi losing narrowly to SK Bagga in Krishna Nagar by 2,277 votes and Congress's Ajay Maken losing by a whopping 51,170 votes to Som Dutt in Sadar Bazar.