2025 Delhi Assembly Election Results: A preliminary assessment | P. S. Jayaramu

February 8, 2025

The most prestigious and widely awaited Delhi Assembly election results are out. Though there were three national Parties which were in the fray, the results have shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that the contest was bipolar between the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) with the grand old Party the Indian National Congress (INC) being on the margins, though some of the Party leaders stated that they are in the race for power, at least as ‘Kingmaker’. The results will be analysed both at the macro and micro levels for quite some time to come. And quite naturally so, as whoever controls Delhi has an aura in national politics with Delhi being the national capital.

Let me get down to a macro-level assessment of the results. My analysis is centred around the key Parties, the BJP, the AAP and the INC.

About the BJP:

The BJP took the elections very seriously, as it always does, demonstrating its hunger for power, more so because controlling the levers of power in Delhi was very important to bolster its image in the eyes in the comity of nations, which house their embassies in Delhi. AAP and Kejriwal in particular was perceived as an embarrassment by the Modi government. Thus, the BJP was determined to snatch power from the AAP and worked in a very sustained and systematic way to achieve its objective. The Party had four M’s in its favour- Modi, (Party) machine, money which is crucial to win electoral battles in contemporary times and the media which by and large was with Modi, though I must hasten to add that sections of the media wrote and spoke favourably about Kejriwal having reformed himself after his return from the jail deciding to vacate his official bungalow (sheeshmahal) and living like an ‘ordinary’ party leader.

On a more serious note, it must be underlined that the BJP seized the initiative in terms of its plans for the infrastructural development of Delhi, improve the lives of the common man and the middle class (the central budget’s bonanza to the middle class on the income tax front helped the Party garner a chunk of their votes), the women and aspirational youth with its promise of improving the civic amenities in the national capital. The Partiy’s promise that it will continue with some of AAP’s people-friendly programmes led the poor, the different categories of the middle class, the Dalits and even minorities vote for the BJP. On their part, the voters felt that their interests suffered as a result of the eternal conflict between the central government and the AAP Sarkar with the LG virtually non-cooperating with the state government. The decisive vote of the Delhi electorate in favour of the BJP showed their yearning for change. The RSS too, with its hundreds of meetings, worked behind tbe scene for the success of the Party. The Party won 50 out of 70 seats.

About the AAP :

The AAP went in to the elections determined to stage a comeback under the leadership of its former CM and national convener Arwind Kejriwal with the incumbent chief minister Aatishi openly declaring that she was only holding power to help Kejriwal to return as CM . The Party thought that an electoral victory would absolve Kejriwal and the Party of the string of corruption charges. The results however have demonstrated that they totally misread the mood and perception of the voters. The verdict demonstrates that the voters chose to punish Kejriwal and the other key leaders for not keeping up their promise of, among many things, cleaning the Yamuna river and ensuring clean air. This time around, the electorate also broke the tradition of voting differently in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. The AAP won only 20 seats, down from its 62 in 2020. They also sent a strong message that the Party needs to rediscover its old values as a campaign against corruption if it has to regain their confidence. It remains to be seen whether the Party would seriously introspect and take corrective steps to recover some of its last ground or sink into history.

About the Congress Party :

As noted earlier, though the Congress Party entered the electoral contest projecting itself to be a player in government formation, the verdict pointed to its rejection by the electorate, as in the 2020 polls. The Congress had no clear agenda, its priorities were hazy, and its campaign uninspiring. Additionally, the Party was clearly lacking in organisational strength, with no visible enrollment in terms of membership. The failure of the Party to strike an electoral alliance with AAP (of course. AAP too did not show any interest in it, riding on its arrogance of returning to power on its own) and poor campaigning cumulatively led to its disastrous performance at the hustlings. The Party has to carry out a series of reforms starting with a membership drive, and restructure itself thoroughly following its electoral failures in Haryana and Maharastra.

Implications for national politics :

1. BJP’s massive victory and return to power after nearly three decades points to its expanding footprints in the country’s electoral map. It will be interpreted as Modi’s victory, clouding to a great extent the organisational strength and the cadre. The setback his image had suffered following the Lok Sabha poll results will be described by his coterie as an aberration and that the three victories in a low in Haryana, Maharastra and now in Delhi, as his achievements, making the Party subservient to him, which is not a healthy sign of Party Politics in India. It is also likely to result in a subordination of the Executive to Modi’s larger than life persona with an expansion of his cult. Such developments do not auger well for our parliamentary democracy.

2. The Opposition space in Indian Politics is likely to shrink further unless the members of the INDIA bloc resolve to come together, subordinating their personal egos and leadership ambitions and devise strategies to work with an alternative vision and narrative to that of the BJP and its brand of homogenisation at the cost of our plural and diverse identities embodied in our Constitution. The leadership of the INDIA bloc must revolve round a collective identity and decision-making mechanism.

3. At the cost of repetition, I stress that the Congress Party would do well to indulge in a serious introspection and the present leadership, including the CWC, make way for a younger leader like Sachin Pilot, along with a new team. More than anything else, the Party should get out of its Modi, Adani and caste-census fixations and patiently wait for its term to the corridors of power, which may or may not happen in the foreseeable future.

(Author: Prof. P. S. Jayaramu is a former Dean, Faculty of Arts, Bangalore University and a former Senior Fellow, ICSSR, New Delhi)