How the AAP lost its plot and office in Delhi
This time multiple factors seem to have added in small measures to deliver a clinching win for the BJP
The Bharatiya Janta Party’s (BJP) pursuit for office in Delhi ended on Saturday after a long wait of 27 years.
How did the BJP win the national capital, which also happens to be the nation’s political capital? A month ago, most political commentators believed that while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) may suffer some losses, it still had the edge in Delhi given the gap between the two parties, both in terms of votes and seats. Despite sweeping the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi multiple times in the past three decades, the BJP had to reconcile with the main Opposition’s slot in successive assembly polls. There were many reasons for this, including the absence of a state-level leader that could match the Congress’s Shiela Dixit, and later the AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal.
This time multiple factors seem to have added in small measures to deliver a clinching win for the BJP.
There were indications that the party changed its strategy in the last three weeks. Initially, the BJP was more focused on attacking Kejriwal over corruption charges and the appropriation of government funds (the Sheesh Mahal allegation being an example) along with several welfare promises. Closer to the polling date, the ground-level campaign started highlighting civic issues and misgovernance. It turned the focus on the condition of roads, water supply, and garbage clearance, among other issues. The fact that the AAP has been in power in the Delhi Municipal Corporation since 2022 did not help the party’s cause. Finally, tax benefits to the middle class in the Union Budget consolidated the BJP’s core constituency.
Post-poll surveys indicate that the BJP made gains among all the sections. It appears that there was greater consolidation among the middle class, men, older voters, and rural areas in western Delhi. The advantage that the AAP expected from women voters and the poor did not materialise on the scale it expected. With a higher proportion of men in the electorate and a relatively large middle class, the AAP’s equation would have worked only if women and the poor turned out in much higher numbers – the voter turnout this time was 60.54%, two percentage points lower compared to 62.59% in 2020.
There is an important lesson for all parties in the Delhi verdict: Welfare schemes work only in conjunction with other factors. On their own, welfare promises cannot overcome perceptions of non-performance in government. The defeats of the BRS in Telangana, the YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha illustrate this point.
Furthermore, the AAP did not have any new positive story in this election. Much of its campaign plank was based on the achievements of its first term. The defeat of the party’s top leadership including Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia indicates that the AAP was facing strong anti-incumbency. The Janata durbars that were the hallmark of Kejriwal’s first term halted during the Covid-19 epidemic and were not revived. The distance between the voters and their leaders kept increasing from then. The office of the lieutenant governor did create hurdles, but that was not so much a concern for the voter: Several reports indicated that voters felt they had given the mandate to the AAP to govern, not to constantly complain.
The AAP can take solace in that it continues to have a decent vote share. But Kejriwal’s loss in the New Delhi seat will hurt: the party’s narrative that the corruption cases were part of a political conspiracy did not find traction with voters. The party, which has been in office in Delhi since its inception, must now learn to survive for at least another five years without power and stall potential desertions of leaders and cadres. The party’s national expansion, which started with the win in Punjab and a decent showing in Gujarat and Goa, may now have to be put on hold.
For the BJP, the Delhi victory signals its political dominance and helps the party to put aside the setback of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The party has shown itself to be an election machine that quickly learns from mistakes and course-corrects. It has won three states since the Lok Sabha results in June and it was on the backfoot in each one of them at the start of the campaign. The win in Haryana corrected the perception that the BJP and Modi’s electoral popularity had peaked. The sweeping majority in Maharashtra ended whatever scepticism was left. And now, Delhi puts the party in the driver’s seat ahead of the Bihar assembly elections slated later this year.
Rahul Verma is fellow, Centre forPolicy Research (CPR), New Delhi.The views expressed are personal