Delhi state chief Arvind Kejriwal has sought federal blessing in his first reaction over his Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) impressive victory in the city's municipal elections. He claimed that the blessing was needed to carry out development works in the city.
"We need the central government's help. We need the PM and centre's aashirvad (blessing)," Kejriwal said at AAP's national headquarters in central Delhi after his party ended BJP's 15-year run at the helm in the city.
In the 250-member house, AAP secured 134 seats while the BJP - which aimed to win a fourth straight term - was behind with 104. The Congress Party, on the other hand, won just nine in a city it ruled for decades.
Despite the BJP falling short of winning a majority, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party proved pollsters - who had predicted a landslide victory for the AAP - wrong. Some exit polls even gave AAP as many as 175 seats while the BJP's tally was projected to remain far below the 100-mark.
Modi's BJP, however, managed to raise its vote share from 36% in the 2017 election to 39%.
Despite the BJP's numbers being slightly above pundit's predictions, they could not prevent arch-rivals AAP from registering their first win.
The AAP's victory also means that Kejriwal's party will now control both the executive and legislative authority in Delhi, giving the residents the "double engine" government it promised before the vote.
In Delhi, the MCD controls several public amenities - from schools and hospitals to road repairing and issuing licenses for new shops.
"We worked day and night to fix schools, we worked day and night to fix hospitals. Today they have given us the responsibility of cleaning up Delhi, ending corruption... There are many responsibilities," Kejriwal concluded.
In the last MCD elections in 2017, the BJP won a thumping majority, winning 181 seats in the then 272-member civic body. The AAP bagged 48 seats. This year the total number of seats was reduced to 250 after a delimitation exercise by the Election Commission.