Centre gives credit to PM Modi's leadership for poll victory

New Delhi: With the trends indicating massive victory for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls, the Centre on Wednesday gave credit to policies of saffron party and leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the same. Union Minister Harshvardhan said, “The early trends look in tune with what I saw during campaigning. People have faith in policies of BJP and leadership of Prime Minister Modi. The credit of victory will go to our all workers and specially Modi ji. The credit will also go to the people of Delhi". Union Minister Vijay Goel was seen seconding Harshvardhan’s take and said “the cleanliness in Delhi would be the priority for the government”. "It is a new morning but there will be new challenges too. We have a challenge to do more work in Delhi MCD where cleanliness comes first. We have to fulfill what people expect from us. I hope that it will be a new start where Delhi government and MCD will work together". As voting for the civic body poll is underway, the state Election Commission’s early trends showed BJP leading the fray. Votes for the elections will be counted at 35 centers across the city. Of these, 16 are in North Delhi, 13 in the South, and six in East Delhi. As many as 90,000 security personnel of Delhi Police, paramilitary forces and Home Guards have been deployed at the counting centres. The counting will go on till late in the day, but initial trends are expected to come in by 11 a.m. Voting to pick three new municipal corporations in Delhi took place on Sunday, in which 54 percent of the 1.32 crore electorates exercised their franchise till 5.30 p.m. However, the polling did not take place in two wards, Maujpur in east Delhi and Sarai Pipal Thala in north Delhi where a candidate each of the Samajwadi Party died. The BJP, the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were the three main contenders in the fray. A total of 2,537 candidates were in the fray for the 104 seats each of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation and the South Delhi Muncipal Corporation, and 64 seats of the East Delhi Municipal Congress. For the first time in the MCD elections, the None Of The Above (NOTA) option has been made available. (With Agency inputs)