NEW DELHI: The BJP wrested power in Delhi after 27 years, delivering a decisive blow to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the 70-member assembly, with Saturday’s results establishing its dominance in the national capital and giving the divided opposition enough points to ponder over.
The BJP’s massive victory saw Arvind Kejriwal and most of his party’s biggies, including Manish Sisodia, lose, while the Congress was decimated, failing to open its account for the third consecutive time.
After the BJP stormed back to power with 48 seats, more than double that of AAP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the party’s performance, calling it a triumph of “development, vision, and trust (Vikas, Vision, Vishwas)”. He said that the BJP would make Yamuna river as the identity of the capital.
During the last leg of the campaign, Kejriwal had alleged that the BJP-led Haryana government had been poisoning the Yamuna, adding had the Delhi Jal Board not stopped its water from coming into the city, it would have triggered genocide. It fueled a major uproar with the Election Commission getting into the act, issuing a notice to Kejriwal.
The results, which ended Kejriwal’s more than a decade-long rule, sent a clear message that Delhi would not tolerate “corruption and lies in politics”, Modi said, addressing jubilant BJP workers at the party headquarters. He added that the capital seeks governance, not theatrics, in a sharp jab at the outgoing AAP government.
Home to over 3.3 crore people, Delhi’s assembly eluded the BJP for over 25 years despite its meteoric rise under Modi since 2014.
However, the party’s persistence finally paid off. Its strategy focused on addressing critical issues impacting daily life, especially corruption charges against AAP leaders, including Kejriwal, along with Yamuna and air pollution, and the excise police scam. The BJP gained from RSS’s efforts, which organised more than 1,000 meetings.
The major income tax relief announced in the Union Budget apparently acted as a force multiplier and substantially shifted the middle class support away from the AAP.
As for AAP, allegations of corruption, lack of civic amenities and development, and the absence of fresh ideas to captivate the public imagination proved to be a major setback, resulting in its worst performance since its electoral debut in 2013. “We accept the mandate of the people with great humility,” Kejriwal said in a video message.
BJP’s Parvesh Verma, son of former CM Sahib Singh Verma, defeated the AAP chief by 4,089 votes from the New Delhi seat while Sisodia was defeated by BJP’s Tarvinder Singh Marwah by 675 votes in Jangpura.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi conceded defeat and said his party will persist in its fight for the people against corruption and pollution.
The result gave the opposition INDIA bloc a lesson or two in unity, as the Congress and AAP went it alone. At least in 11 seats, AAP lost due to a split in opposition votes. For example, Kejriwal lost by 4,089 votes with Congress’s Sandeep Dikshit came third with 4,568 votes from the same seat. Had AAP and Congress contested together, Kejriwal could have squeaked through by a narrow margin.