It was a neck and neck fight between Aam Aadmi Party’s Satyendra Jain and Bharatiya Janata Party's SC Vats in the Shakur Basti constituency of the Delhi Assembly elections. Jain has cornered 51.6 percent of the votes, while Vats has tallied 43.94 percent. The margin of Jain's lead over his BJP rival about 7,500 votes, according to the Election Commission website.

Voting for all 70 seats of the Delhi Assembly took place on February 8.

Jain is looking for a third consecutive Assembly election win from the Shakur Basti seat, having won from the constituency in the 2013 and the 2015 polls.

Dev Raj Arora of the Congress has garnered 2.73 percent of the votes so far in the constituency.

Jain is one of the seven ministers in the Delhi cabinet, holding the several portfolios, including health. Work in the health sector was one of the main poll planks for AAP, with the political upstart touting the creation of mohalla clinics as one of the successes of its five-year tenure. The community health centres across Delhi bear faces of the chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Jain.

Also read: Inside a Delhi Mohalla Clinic — which AAP will showcase to retain power in assembly elections

Apart from health, Jain is also in charge of power, public works department, industries, and Gurudwara elections.

An architect by education, Jain worked with the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) and was involved with social causes. He later became a part of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, fronted by Anna Hazare.

Like many from the anti-corruption movement, Jain took the political plunge with the formation of AAP and has been a prominent member of the party since.

In the early days of the Delhi poll campaigning, AAP were widely believed a certainty to secure another five-year term. However, the BJP launched a blitzkrieg around the anti-CAA protests in Delhi, particularly targeting the road blockade in Shaheen Bagh, to muddy the waters.

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First Published:Feb 11, 2020 9:28 AM IST