The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now has a two-third majority in the Delhi assembly with 48 MLAs in an assembly of 70. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which won a massive mandate in the 2015 and 2020 elections, is now a distant second with its seat count being lower than what it was even in 2013 when it contested its first election in Delhi. What is the best way to understand the results? Here are three charts that answer this
Three key takeaways from the capital verdictThe first-past-the-post system shoe has shifted from BJP to AAP’s foot this time
AAP’s seat share has fallen by a massive 57 percentage points which is much larger than the 10 percentage point fall in its vote share between 2020 and 2025. The rise in BJP’s fortunes is almost similar in the opposite direction. Its seat share has increased by 57 percentage points with a vote share increase of just above seven percentage points. This is the first-past-the-post system in play which rewards and punishes disproportionately in converting votes into seats in bipolar contests. AAP benefitted from this in 2015 and 2020 and is now at the receiving end.
Even allying with the Congress would not have saved the AAP in these elections
This is the other significant aspect of the electoral math this time. With the 2025 results behind us, one can argue in hindsight that the AAP peaked in Delhi in 2020 assembly elections. Its vote share in the 2022 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections – they cover 68 out of the 70 ACs in Delhi – was 42.05% which is almost the same as its 2025 assembly election vote share. Would it have made a difference had the AAP allied with the Congress in these elections? An analysis of 2024 Lok Sabha – the Congress and the AAP contested in an alliance – and 2025 assembly election results at the AC-level shows that this is unlikely to be the case. Here is why. The AAP-Congress alliance polled a vote share of 42.53% in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Their combined vote share in the 2025 elections is much higher, 49.9%. In fact, in 42 out of the 70 ACs, AAP’s 2025 vote share is more than what the Congress and the AAP alliance had in 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This suggests that a section of the AAP’s voter base is actually averse to voting for the Congress and a mechanical addition of the Congress and AAP vote share in the 2025 elections is not the correct way to estimate the efficacy or lack of it of a possible Congress-AAP alliance. To be sure, even an addition of AAP-Congress votes would have given them just 36 ACs in the current assembly.
Did local anti-incumbency hurt the AAP in these elections?
AAP fielded 37out of its 62 incumbent MLAs in the current elections and put up fresh candidates in the remaining 33 ACs. These numbers count a sitting MLA changing constituency – such as Manish Sisodia moving from Patparganj to Jangpura – as a new candidate. While 15 out of the 37 incumbents have managed to win, only seven out of the 33 fresh candidates have managed to win. This shows that it was actually attrition – either forced or voluntary – at the constituency level rather than incumbency which hurt the AAP more. To be sure, AAP’s strike rate has fallen in both kinds of ACs compared to past two elections in Delhi.
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