With only 22 seats won, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) saw a severe defeat in the Delhi assembly elections, a sharp decline from its prior tally of 62. After 27 years, the BJP eventually grabbed control of the nation’s capital by driving out the AAP amid accusations of using muscle and money power, communally-tinged disinformation campaign, and electoral roll manipulation, as was the case in the Maharashtra assembly election.
The BJP has done nothing to show its achievements to woo the city’s voters which failed to secure even a double-digit seat share in the previous two assembly polls. But this time it won the election with an overwhelming 48 of 70 seats thanks to the Congress presence. For this act, the Congress came under heavy fire from its INDIA bloc partners. They claimed that it was a missed opportunity for unity of opposition forces and the Congress had unwittingly contributed to the BJP’s victory.
“The chaos within the INDIA Bloc is largely to blame for this defeat,” a CPI(M) spokesman stated. “It is evident that the BJP would not have achieved this degree of success if the secular parties had cooperated.”
Although they did not specifically criticise Congress, the IUML shared similar views. “We could have effectively stopped the BJP’s momentum if the India Bloc had fought as a united front,” a senior IUML leader said. We have paid a heavy price for this disjointed strategy.
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, a key ally of the AAP-led alliance, said, “If the Congress and AAP had come together, the result could have been different… The political rival of AAP and Congress is the BJP. Both fought to stop the BJP from coming to power, but they fought separately. Had they been together, BJP’s defeat would have been decided in the first hour (of counting).”
Although the Congress party was unable to secure a seat in the Delhi Assembly for third consecutive term but increased its vote shares, the party leaders have attempted to change the narrative of the election outcomes. They portrayed the result as a vote against Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP’s leadership rather than admitting the Congress’ own subpar performance.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the election results had more to do with the failure of AAP’s governance than any endorsement of BJP policies. “The results of the 2025 Delhi Assembly elections are nothing more than a referendum on Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party,” he said.
“Even when Prime Minister Modi was at the peak of his popularity in 2015 and 2020, AAP managed to secure decisive victories. This time, however, the people have rejected Kejriwal’s politics of deceit and exaggerated claims of achievements.”
Defending the Congress, Pawan Khera said the meltdown of a section of so-called liberals is completely bizarre. They didn’t give these lectures on Opposition unity to AAP when the party went to Goa, Gujarat, and Haryana, etc., to fight elections and weaken the anti-communal, secular vote.
Besides anti-incumbency, this time around, the AAP’s defeat shown that freebie politics cannot last long and its soft-Hindutva card also failed to deliver. Both BJP and Congress also adopted AAP’s manifestos, which included financial assistance as well as free water, power, and bus services for women.
With a sleight of hand, the increase of income tax slab from Rs 8 to 12 lakh and the constitution of 8th pay commission were other factors that wean away middle-class voters from AAP. Furthermore, in order to appease the hardcore Hindutva-influenced voters, in the middle of the electioneering, implementation of UCC in Uttarakhand announced and the JPC report on the controversial Waqf Bill presented. Then there was a pamphlet doing rounds laced with utter lies to target waqf properties.
The AAP hasn’t lost the majority of its core low-income vote, according to vote-share statistics. Since BJP would have always planned with that presumption in mind, it specifically targeted Delhi’s middle class and neo-middle class, who were less impressed by free power, water, and primary healthcare and more displeased with the status of roads, traffic, Yamuna, and air pollution. Delhi voters include numerous government employees and their families, so BJP added the announcement of the 8th Pay Commission and the income tax cuts in the budget to that.
The BJP ran a vigorous campaign criticising certain aspects of AAP’s welfare policies. One such effort involved “ghost patients” and “fake medicines” in free mohalla clinics. The AAP vigorously refuted these assertions. However, some of those accusations persisted when combined with observable shortcomings, such as the Yamuna’s continued filthy flow, and frantic AAP allegations, such as the BJP government in Haryana “poisoning” the Yamuna water. This message is vividly told by the fact that AAP suffered significant losses in seats around the Haryana border.
BJP candidate Parvesh Verma defeated Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi constituency. For the time being at least, Kejriwal’s standing as a significant national opposition figure has been significantly weakened. After the Delhi results, his political brand suffered more than most. Former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia lost to Tarvinder Singh Marwah of BJP from Jangpura seat by a thin margin. Incumbent Chief Minister Atishi retained her Kalkaji seat.
Even though the AAP lost, the party did well in the Muslim-majority areas, where four Muslim candidates won seats. AAP has produced all of the successful Muslim candidates in this election.
Imran Hussain (AAP) from Ballimaran, Aaley Mohammed Iqbal (AAP) from Matia Mahal, Amanatullah Khan (AAP) from Okhla, and Chaudhary Zubair Ahmad (AAP) from Seelampur are among the winners.
Despite the potential for Muslim votes to be split as a result of Congress and, in case of Okhla,AIMIM’s participation, the Muslim candidates managed to win.
Five Muslim candidates were elected and they were all from the AAPin 2020, with the party winning all seven seats – Okhla, Babarpur, Mustafabad, Seelampur, Matia Mahal, Ballimaran, and Chandni Chowk – that have a sizable Muslim majority. Mohan Singh Bisht of BJP defeated AAP candidate in Mustafabad by 17,578 votes thanks to a vote split between the three Muslim candidates of AAP, AIMIM, and Congress.
Together, the Muslim contenders received 1,12,874 votes in Mustafabad. The AIMIM failed to win either of the two seats in which it ran in the Delhi assembly elections.AIMIM candidate Tahir Hussain, who was imprisoned in relation to the Delhi riots of 2020, received 33,474 votes to finish third. Shifa-ur-Rehman, an AIMIM candidate, received 39,558 votes and came in third place in Okhla.
Despite the fact that Muslim voters felt AAP disregarded and marginalised their concerns during the 2020 riots and played a questionable role in “blaming” the Tablighi Jamaat for the spread of COVID-19. In the end though, AAP was able to win by substantial proportions of their votes as AAP candidates won by significant margins in several seats with a significant Muslim population, including Okhla, Babarpur, Seelampur, Matia Mahal, Ballimaran, and Chandni Chowk.