New Delhi, Jun 26 (IANS) After the party's defeat at the hands of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Durgesh Pathak in Rajinder Nagar assembly bypoll, Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta on Sunday said that low voter turnout and poor show by the Congress are key reasons behind the loss.

Talking to IANS, Gupta said that the victory margin of AAP has come down from over 20,000 in 2020 assembly polls to around 11,000 in the bypoll. "Our workers have worked hard but unfortunately failed to convert it into victory. We succeeded in reducing the AAP influence by decreasing their victory margin and will uproot the party (AAP) in the next elections," Gupta said.

When asked about the reasons for the party's defeat, Gupta said that the BJP voters were not in Delhi and drop in Congress vote share is also a reason. "Our voters were away from Delhi, their (AAP) voters were also out of the city. But our votes are intact and vote share has increased. The vote share of the Congress has dropped from six-seven per cent from last election to two-three per cent in this election. If the Congress had made its presence felt, the result would have been different," Gupta said.

Talking about low turnout, Gupta explained that the BJP stronghold witnessed low turnout of around 40 per cent while AAP stronghold reported 52 to 55 per cent voter turnout. The Delhi BJP will have detailed analysis of election results after a report will be submitted by the election in-charge Ajay Mahawar.

"We have sought a report of party performance in Rajinder Nagar assembly bypoll from election in-charge. A detailed discussion will be held after the report is submitted to find out the exact reason for the defeat and the shortcoming of the party," Gupta added.

AAP's Durgesh Pathak defeated BJP's Rajesh Bhatia by a margin of 11,468 votes. The bypoll was necessitated after AAP's Raghav Chadha resigned from the Delhi assembly after he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab.