Campaign done, over to Delhi in high-stakes poll
Delhi assembly elections campaign ends with AAP, BJP, and Congress making final pitches to 15.5 million voters ahead of the February 5 vote.
The high-octane campaign for the Delhi assembly elections wound up on Monday, drawing the curtains on weeks-long acerbic tussles between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress, whose leaders made a final pitch to the city’s 15.5 million voters two days before the Capital’s electoral fate is locked.

Top political leaders made a flurry of public appearances and blitzed Delhi’s voters with promises of welfare schemes, cash hand-outs and improved civic amenities on a chilly February day that featured rallies by former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal of the AAP, Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh of the BJP, and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not address a rally on Monday, but hit out at the AAP during an interaction with a clutch of school students in Delhi.
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The Capital will choose between 699 candidates for Delhi’s 70 assembly seats on February 5. The results will be declared on February 8.
Analysts are largely expecting the elections to be a bipolar contest between the AAP and the BJP. The AAP has governed Delhi on its own since 2015 and pinned its campaign on its trademark brand of welfarist politics, underpinned by robust educational and health care infrastructure. It has promised a ₹2,100 cash hand-out for poor women, free treatment for the elderly in all hospitals and an ₹18,000 monthly allowance for Hindu and Sikh priests, among 16 “guarantees” if voted to power for a third term, even as it alleged that the BJP will end all current subsidy schemes the AAP has implemented.
The BJP, on the other hand, has fielded its top leaders in a blitzkrieg of rallies to cash in on a decade’s worth of anti-incumbency, as it seeks to corner the ruling party on allegations of corruption, ineffectual policies and crumbling civic infrastructure. The party, which last ruled Delhi in 1998, has vowed to give ₹2,500 a month to poor women, ₹10 lakh health cover to senior citizens, and a ₹500 subsidy on LPG cylinders, even as has it underscored that all ongoing Delhi government programmes will be retained.
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It has also talked up the tax cuts announced in the 2025-26 Budget on Saturday, a move that is likely to benefit millions of working professionals in the city.
For the Congress, which has not had a presence in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha for a decade, any uptick from its 2015 and 2020 blanks will be a positive. It has vowed ₹2,500 for poor women, health insurance of ₹25L, and a stipend of ₹8,500 per month and apprenticeships for young people, with senior party leaders arguing that the city’s development had paused after former Congress chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s 15 years at the helm ended in 2013.
The AAP won 62 of 70 seats in the 2015 polls, with the BJP bagging just eight.
Welfare promises apart, much of the acerbic campaign revolved around a clutch of issues – allegations of corruption surrounding the 2021-22 excise policy and the revamp of Kejriwal’s former residence at 6 Flag Staff Road, claims that Haryana was poisoning the Yamuna and the city’s hobbled governance structure.
Kejriwal led the AAP’s charge on Monday and addressed two roadshows — at Chhatarpur and Kalkaji. The party’s campaign was bolstered by chief minister Atishi, her Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann, Sisodia and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, who criss-crossed the Capital with roadshows and motorbike rallies.
The AAP chief said a BJP government would imperil Delhi.
“BJP will stop five schemes if they come to power. They will stop free electricity, free water, free bus rides for women, they will close Mohalla Clinics and Delhi government. The BJP closed 850 government schools in Rajasthan after coming to power,” he said during an address in Chhatarpur.
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“Don’t press the lotus button even by mistake or your life will become hell,” Kejriwal added.
Later, he told reporters, “I have visited the entire Delhi. I think that we are going to win 55 seats. But if mothers and sisters push hard, we can win up to 60 seats.”
Sisodia led a motorbike rally in Jangpura and assured voters that their local problems will be resolved swiftly.
“Press the ‘jhadu’ button and vote for the Aam Aadmi Party to address the roads, sewer, and water issues in your localities. I promise to resolve these problems within the next few months,” he said.
Mann, during a roadshow in Shalimar Bagh, said that the people of Delhi have made up their minds to elect Arvind Kejriwal as chief minister for the fourth time.
Over the past week, Modi led the BJP’s campaign charge with threerallies in Delhi. Top Union ministers, party chief JP Nadda and a slew of BJP chief ministers, including Yogi Adityanath of Uttar Pradesh and Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam, also canvassed during a blitz of rallies.
During an interaction with students on Monday, Modi criticised the AAP’s education model, alleging that the party bars students from taking the Class 10 exams if they perform poorly in Class 9 so that the city’s board exam results are not marred.
“I have heard that in Delhi they do not promote students to Class 10 if they perform poorly in Class 9. They only allow those students in Class 10 who are guaranteed to clear the exam. They fear that if the results are poor, the image of their government will be tarnished,” the PM said in the interaction, a short video of which BJP leaders shared on social media.
Meanwhile, Shah during one of his threerallies on Monday said states with a “double-engine BJP government” have progressed in the last 10 years, but Delhi has been left behind because the AAP kept “making excuses” and “fighting with the Centre”.
Speaking at a public meeting in Jangpura, he accused Kejriwal and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia of “looting” Delhi.
“States with a double-engine BJP government have progressed in the last 10 years. Delhi has been left behind. They keep making excuses and fighting with the Centre like a cry baby,” the BJP leader said at a rally in Jangpura, the seat that Sisodia is contesting from.
Defence minister Singh, who held roadshows at Chhatarpur and Moti Nagar said the people of Delhi have suffered enough under the AAP government.
“The winds of change are blowing and with my political experience, I am confident that the BJP will get a two-thirds majority,” Singh said.
Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra addressed a rally in Seemapuri and said the struggles of Delhi’s working class had magnified in the past decade.
“I have been around the city, seen your life, your struggles, and it looks like your struggles have only increased,” she said.
“People from all over the country migrate to Delhi to make their future. There are absolutely no jobs in Delhi. Does anyone listen to your struggles? You work day and night, even I have stayed here in this city. I used to work at an ashram here in Seemapuri, in an NGO, near the leprosy colony, I worked there for a while. There was a dispensary which used to give free medicine, and people used to line up for it,” she said.
