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Informist, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025

NEW DELHI – In a major turnaround of events in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party was voted out of power on Saturday, after ruling the national capital for a decade. The strong anti-incumbency corruption allegations and its failure in delivering on the promises in the past 10 years crumbled the AAP in the Assembly elections.

The AAP won 22 out of 70 seats for which the elections were held on Wednesday. The AAP recorded its poorest show in the Delhi Assembly elections since its inception. The party entered electoral politics in the 2013 Delhi elections and won 28 seats. In the 2015 and 2020 Delhi Assembly polls, it won 67 and 62 seats, respectively. The party also suffered a massive fall of nearly 10 percentage points in its vote share, which plummeted to 43.5% from 53.5% in the 2020 Assembly elections.

There are various reasons behind the AAP's defeat in the elections, but the prominent ones are allegations of corruption, unfulfilled promises, anti-incumbency and contesting the elections individually.

The allegations of corruption against former chief minister of Delhi and party's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and other top leaders in the Delhi Excise policy case dented the party's clean politics narrative. The party, which came into existence on the principle of corruption-free politics, suffered a massive jolt after its top leaders – Kejriwal, Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Satyendra Jain - were arrested by the law enforcement agencies on corruption charges. The party, however, termed the corruption cases against its leaders a sham. The controversy surrounding the massive expenses on renovation of the chief minister's house further dented the common-man image of Kejriwal. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress dubbed the chief minister's residence as Sheesh Mahal. The saffron party also ran a campaign on Kejriwal's renovated house. It tarnished Kejriwal's image as he entered into politics questioning politicians for using luxury vehicles and lavish houses at taxpayers' expenses.

After more than a decade in power, the party's appeal has waned among the middle class. While the AAP did well in welfarism by providing free electricity, water and bus rides to women, it failed to resolve the issue of water shortage in the national capital. Despite 10 years in power, the round the clock availability of water was still a distant dream for the people of Delhi. Sanitation and road infrastructure were other major causes of the party's defeat. The poor condition of roads, clogged drains and poor cleanliness fuelled anger in the middle and upper middle classes. According to reports, the middle class constitutes nearly 66% of Delhi's population. The party's failure in curbing air pollution also impacted its prospects. The AAP's failure to clean the Yamuna River, too, had a negative impact on voters.

An alliance with the Congress party could have yielded a third term for the Kejriwal-led party. There are at least 10 seats which the AAP lost with a margin of over 300 to 4000 votes and the Congress candidates were polled much more than the defeat margin in these seats. These seats include New Delhi and Jangpura, contested by Kejriwal and Sisodia, respectively. An alliance with the Congress party would have given an edge to the AAP. The AAP had contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Delhi in alliance with the Congress party. According to Congress leaders, the AAP was not keen to form an alliance for Assembly polls and preferred to go solo. End

Reported by Kuldeep Singh

Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj

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