The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is attempting a hat-trick of wins in Delhi, where assembly elections will take place on February 5. After sweeping the 2015 and 2020 state elections, it is seeking to retain office for a third consecutive time. If the last two state elections (I use state and Union territory (UT) interchangeably in this piece) are any indication, this isn’t much of a contest — with the AAP winning more than 60 of Delhi’s 70 seats in each election. But a lot has changed since then. The Delhi riots that took place soon after the 2020 election hurt the party’s performance in Muslim-dominated areas. And, of course, there has been the jailing of key AAP leaders and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal in the lead-up to the 2024 national election. Finally, 10 years in office is a long time, and there is always the question of voter fatigue with any party. Meanwhile, the AAP’s chief rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), did well in Delhi in the 2024 national election, even while facing heavy losses in many other parts of northern India.
New Delhi, India - Jan. 6, 2025: Delhi Election Commission members organised Voters Awareness Live Demo at outside the New Ashok Nagar Metro Parking in New Delhi, India, on Monday, January 6, 2025. (Photo by RAJ K RAJ / Hindustan Times) (RAJ K RAJ /HT PHOTO)
However, the BJP faces major challenges heading into the state election. The BJP’s vote share has consistently stayed below 40% in Delhi’s state elections (unlike national elections). In the last three elections (2013, 2015, and 2020), the BJP’s average seat-wise vote share was 38.8%, 32.6%, and 39.9%. But this is quite different from the national election; in 2014, the BJP’s average vote share in Delhi (across Assembly segments) of 45.9% and, in 2019, this spiked to 55.8%, falling to 54.35% in 2024.
Two key facts emerge from this simple comparison. First, even though the BJP was the single largest party in Delhi in the 2013 state election, its overall vote share was not dramatically different from the subsequent state elections in which it was routed, implying a need to increase its state-level vote share. Second, there is a dramatic divergence between state and general elections in Delhi, as the BJP led in 60, 65 and 52 of the 70 assembly segments in the 2014, 2019 and 2024 national elections respectively, while managing to win just three and eight assembly seats in the 2015 and 2020 state elections respectively (the AAP’s performance is a mirror image of the BJP’s performance). Meanwhile, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP led in 52 assembly segments.
To make sense of the upcoming assembly election, it is necessary to know how assembly elections differ from the national election in Delhi, and to what extent the same factors will play again in the assembly election. The AAP is a very peculiar party in that it is “national” in the sense it has shown the ability to win in disparate states/UTs such as Delhi, Punjab, and Gujarat. But it tends to underperform in the general election. Much of this has to do with the fact that the AAP has been branded around the “Delhi Model” of providing good public infrastructure in education and health.
Since it does not ideologically differentiate itself from any other party in India, the fact that the AAP controlled Delhi’s state resources but neither Central nor municipal resources (which are with the BJP) obliged it to distinguish itself in service delivery. But this service delivery is specific to what a state government can deliver. There continues to be much excitement about the public infrastructure that the AAP built in Delhi; its chances of reversing national trends will depend on establishing the claim that the Delhi BJP leadership is incapable of maintaining the public infrastructure it has built.
A second factor in the distinction between Centre and state politics concerns the AAP’s political trajectory. Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP won office on the back of the India Against Corruption movement, which was seen as a middle-class mobilisation. Since then, the party has focussed on issues such as improving public health and education infrastructure to providing subsidised water and electricity. Today, the AAP’s politics is seen as “pro-poor” and continues to have resonance in Delhi’s slums, unauthorised colonies, and otherwise informal settlements. Given that Delhi is a major recipient of labour migration, this constitutes a huge bloc of voters.
Heading into the state election, the question is whether middle- and upper-class sensibilities are electorally consequential in Delhi. While there is discernible frustration and anti-incumbency among Delhi’s middle and upper classes, this is also a class of people that is less concerned about state benefits and infrastructure, uses too much water and electricity to benefit from subsidies, prefers cars instead of buses, and opts for private solutions to health and education needs. There is a larger question of political economy about how these classes shape politics when they are not particularly responsive to what the state delivers.
Finally, will there be sympathy for the AAP (and Arvind Kejriwal) on account of their claims that the Centre and the BJP overreached by arresting its leaders? In Jharkhand, the BJP fared well in the national election, which took place in the wake of the controversial arrest of the chief minister and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Hemant Soren, only to be defeated in the state election later in the year.
Nationally, this election will be consequential for one key reason. The AAP and its Delhi Model evinced a political appeal based on delivery instead of identity. After 10 years of the AAP government, we will know whether Delhi still feels that way.
Neelanjan Sircar is an associate professor in the School of Arts and Sciences at Ahmedabad University.The views expressed are personal
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