New Delhi, Feb 8 (IANS): Delhites voted overwhelmingly for the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party across caste, age or income groups in the Assembly polls on Saturday but the voting pattern of the Muslims stands out. According to the IANS-CVoter exit poll, a sizeable 60 per cent of the community voters backed the AAP, nearly twice the combined Muslim votes that went to BJP and Congress.
The exit poll survey, conducted on Saturday with a sample size of 11,839 respondents, across all 70 Assembly constituencies, showed that 60 per cent of the Muslim voters in Delhi cast their ballot for the AAP, 18.9 per cent for the BJP and 14.5 per cent for the Congress.
This comes against the backdrop of the recent anti-CAA protests protests that engulfed the national capital in the last two months.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which demoted India 10 ranks to the 51st place out of 167 countries in its Democracy Index's global ranking, among other reasons, said that the "new citizenship law has enraged the large Muslim population, stoked communal tensions and generated large protests in major cities".
Besides, the survey showed that a strong majority of lower income groups also sided with the AAP. Over 46 per cent of the votes who fall under the income group below Rs 3,000 a month seem to have bought AAP's election campaign on free water and electricity, while 28 per cent of them voted for BJP and only 15 per cent to the Congress.
The AAP dominated even the higher income group voters as 53 per cent of the individuals earning above Rs 1 lakh voted for AAP. The comparable percentage for BJP and Congress stood at 32 per cent and 6.8 per cent.
A close contest for middle class votes was seen.
Voting patterns of the middle class earning in the range of Rs 20,000 to 50,000 showed 47 per cent siding with the AAP and a close 40 per cent with the BJP and only 8 per cent for the Congress.
Exit poll shows that 47.6 per cent of Delhi's farmers also wanted Arvind Kejriwal to continue as Delhi Chief Minister while 30.6 per cent voted for BJP and 14 per cent for Congress.
Voting for Delhi's 70 seats took place on Saturday and the counting will be held on Tuesday.