AAP, BJP on rally blitz as Delhi poll fight intensifies
A high-stakes battle is shaping up in the Capital, with the two top contenders for the Delhi Vidhan Sabha leaving no stone unturned
Four chief ministers, a former chief minister and a Union minister fanned out across the national capital and addressed a series of high-voltage election rallies on Thursday, as leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) hit the streets in a bid to galvanise their parties’ campaigns with less than two weeks to go for the assembly elections.

The BJP was represented by three chief ministers — Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), Mohan Yadav (Madhya Pradesh) and Pushkar Singh Dhami (Uttarakhand) — and party chief and Union minister JP Nadda to shore up its offensive against the AAP, which has governed the Capital for a decade now. They lashed out at Kejriwal, the AAP chief, for the city’s “crumbling infrastructure”, “providing shelter to Rohingya”, and “keeping the Yamuna filthy”, and urged people to vote a BJP government to power in the February 5 polls.
Delhi’s ruling AAP fielded former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who addressed rallies in Hari Nagar, Rajouri Garden and Madipur, and Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, who spoke in Chhatarpur, Kasturba Nagar and Mehrauli. The party leaned on its existing welfare schemes in Delhi and reiterated that an AAP government, if voted to power, would give every poor woman in the city ₹2,100, drumming up support for one of its flagship poll promises.
Adityanath, addressing his first rally in Delhi during the ongoing election cycle, accused Kejriwal and his cabinet of ignoring pollution in the Yamuna.
“If my ministers and I can take a dip in the Sangam at Prayagraj... I want to ask Kejriwal, can he and his ministers take a dip in the Yamuna?... I don’t think the people of Delhi will forgive him for this negligence,” the Uttar Pradesh chief minister said, addressing a rally in Kirari, northwest Delhi.
Adityanath’s second stop for the day was Karol Bagh, where he accused the AAP of instigating the 2020 Delhi riots in which 53 people were killed and hundreds injured.
“With the help of Bangladeshi infiltrators, their (AAP) councillors and officials instigated riots in 2020. They created chaos and hooliganism in Shaheen Bagh. Today if you look at the states where the double engine government of the BJP is, you will find a clean and safe environment there,” he said.
Adityanath also compared Delhi and Noida, claiming that infrastructure in the UP city is better than in the national capital.
Kejriwal hit back and said the BJP’s “double-engine” government had failed to develop Uttar Pradesh.
Addressing a rally in Hari Nagar, he said, “The government schools in Uttar Pradesh are in shambles, even though they have been in power for 10 years... If they need, we will send our education minister from Delhi and teach Uttar Pradesh how to fix government schools.”
A high-stakes battle is shaping up in the Capital, with the two top contenders for the Delhi Vidhan Sabha leaving no stone unturned. A win for the AAP would script history – it would return to power for the third consecutive term after resounding wins in 2015 and 2020. A win for the BJP, which hasn’t ruled Delhi since 1998, would snap the AAP’s historic decade-long vise grip on the state secretariat.
The Congress, which ruled Delhi for 15 years between 1998 and 2013, has drawn a blank in the previous elections – a record it hopes to reverse when the votes are counted on February 8.
A day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi skipped a public rally in Sadar Bazar, party leader Devender Yadav announced that the Rae Bareli MP will not participate in a rally planned at Mustafabad on Thursday either. The senior Congress leader has so far addressed one rally in the city.
The campaign in Delhi has largely coalesced around the promise of welfare schemes for women and poor people, even as parties have locked horns over a range of issues – from Kejriwal’s controversial former 6 Flag Staff Road residence, the alleged infiltration of Bangladeshi immigrants and corruption charges against the AAP’s top brass to accusations of BJP leaders distributing goodies during their campaign, the lack of a CM face by the BJP and Congress, and alleged instances of voter deletion.
Punjab CM and senior AAP leader Bhagwant Mann, who has campaigned in Delhi since January 15, speaking in Kasturba Nagar said that even though the BJP has formed the government in 20 states, it has not “given free electricity and medical treatment” in any of them.
“The AAP has formed governments in two states and both provide free electricity and free health care,” he said, addressing a rally.
Nadda, who addressed rallies at Uttam Nagar and Shakur Basti, said the AAP, which rode to power on the promise of getting rid of corruption, has become “a party that has broken all records of corruption.”
“Kejriwal would come first in a national-level lying competition. The people of Delhi have now woken up... They spoke about education, but ended up doing liquor scams. They said they will give free water... The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has done a ₹28,000 crore scam, one where there was no audit internally. They have left Delhi at the mercy of the tanker mafia... This man (Kejriwal) can only lie. Under the BJP, not only will existing schemes continue, but we will add more schemes of their own too... It is both ironic and sad that a party that came to power stating they will get rid of corruption has become so corrupt. I have never seen such corruption in my lifetime,” said Nadda, addressing a gathering at Uttam Nagar in support of BJP candidate Pawan Sharma.
Addressing campaign speeches, Kejriwal, alleged in a post on X that the Delhi Police colluded with the Opposition and allowed the entry of the “opposition candidate’s men” to his public meeting, who then “attacked” his car.
“All this is happening on the orders of Amit Shah. Amit Shah has made the Delhi Police the personal army of the BJP. Big questions are being raised on the Election Commission that the national president of a national party and its leaders are being constantly attacked, and the Election Commission is unable to take any effective action,” he wrote on X.
Separately, he said, “The BJP announced three days ago that they will stop free education... if you press the wrong button (on EVM), the free education available to your children will stop, and the schools will become like Uttar Pradesh government schools.”
Uttarakhand CM Dhami, speaking at a rally in Palam, said “Congress supported those in Jammu and Kashmir who want to restore Article 370 and support separatism, stone-pelters, and terrorists.”
He urged the people of Delhi not to be misled by the “jhaadu walas and Congress”.
Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav called Kejriwal a liar and reached out to the Yadav community, saying the BJP was the only party that gave a ‘Yaduvanshi’ the chance to head a state.
