At least seven defectors fielded by the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi Assembly elections, and one contesting on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket won their seats on Tuesday. The Arvind Kejriwal-led party had fielded nine political turncoats, the BJP four, and the Congress gave tickets to three such candidates.

Anil Bajpai, a former AAP MLA from Gandhinagar, retained the constituency on a BJP ticket. He defeated Aam Aadmi Party leader Naveen Chaudhary by more than 6,000 votes.

Former Congress leader Vinay Mishra, the son of former MP Mahabal Mishra, won the Dwarka seat for the AAP by more than 14,000 votes. The ruling party’s candidate in Chandni Chowk, Prahlad Singh Sawhney, also secured victory. Sawhney, a four-time MLA who had switched over from the Congress, defeated Suman Kumar Gupta of the BJP and former AAP leader Alka Lamba by more than 27,000 votes. Lamba joined the Congress last year after being at loggerheads with the ruling party for several months.

AAP candidate A Dhanwati Chandela A defeated BJP’s Ramesh Khanna by more than 20,000 votes in West Delhi’s Rajouri Garden. She was earlier with the Congress, and had lost to BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa in the Rajouri Garden bye-polls in 2018. BJP leader and Twitter celebrity Tajinder Singh Bagga lost to AAP’s Rajkumari Dhillon by more than 20,000 votes in Hari Nagar. Dhillon is also a former Congress leader.

The AAP’s Shoaib Iqbal won Central Delhi’s Matia Mahal constituency by 50,241 votes. In 2013, Iqbal had won the seat on a Congress ticket. Two years later, he lost it to the AAP’s Asim Ahmed Khan.

Former BJP leader Chaudhary Surender Kumar was fielded from Gokalpur, a reserved constituency, by the ruling party. He defeated his former party colleague Ranjeet Singh by more than 20,000 votes. In Bawana, the Kejriwal-led party fielded Jai Bhagwan Upkar, who was earlier with the BJP. He defeated the saffron party’s Ravinder Kumar by over 10,000 votes.

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