Continuing with its winning streak, Congress on Saturday captured all the seven Lok Sabha seats in New Delhi with its candidates registering thumping victories.
Union Ministers Kapil Sibal and Ajay Maken, DPCC chief J P Aggarwal, Mahabal Mishra, Krishna Tirath, Sandeep Dikshit and Ramesh Kumar pulled out spectacular wins, repeating the assembly poll showing in November last.
All the candidates except for Ramesh secured a victory margin over one lakh and a vote-share of more than 50 per cent.
Dikshit, Aggarwal and Sibal led the pack with a stunning margin of over two lakh votes each.
The giant killer was Mishra who won from West Delhi, considered a BJP stronghold, defeating former Delhi Opposition Leader Jagdish Mukhi by a margin of a whopping 1,29,033 votes.
Adding icing on the cake was the victory of Vipin Kumar who retained the Rohtas Nagar Assembly seat which fell vacant after his father and former DPCC chief Ram Babu Sharma died. He defeated BJP's Divya Jaiswal by 23,547 votes.
The stunning victory of the Congress nominees came after a dramatic withdrawal of the candidatures of Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar following a renewed controversy over their alleged role in 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
The results will further strengthen the position of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who was credited for the party scoring a hat-trick in the Assembly elections.
The election was also a litmus test for Sajjan, who did hectic lobbying for getting the party ticket for his brother Ramesh, after he withdrew from the poll race. His brother defeated BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri by a margin of 93,219 votes.
Ticket from North-East Delhi, from where Jagdish Tytler's candidature was withdrawn, was given to DPCC chief Aggarwal who easily overcame the electoral battle against Sangh Parivar veteran B L Sharma Prem.
Interestingly in North-East seat, Haji Dilshad Ali, the BSP candidate who withdrew from the race in favour of Congress, polled 44,111 votes as BSP had asked supporters to exercise franchise in favour of the party, saying the vote is for the party and not for the candidate.
Besides Ali's withdrawal, Aggarwal also managed to rope in prominent Muslim face Shoaib Iqbal on his side.
Sibal defeated Vijender Gupta in Chandni Chowk by polling around 60 per cent of the total 7.8 lakh votes while Maken got the better of former Union Minister and BJP leader Vijay Goel in New Delhi by a margin of 1,87,809 votes.
Maken polled 59.47 per cent of the total votes of over 7.66 lakh votes.
Dikshit defeated former cricketer Chetan Chouhan in East Delhi by a margin of 2,41,051 votes. He polled over 60 per cent of a total of 8,57,411 votes.
