NEW DELHI: In a significant political upheaval, the AAP faced a major setback in the 2025 Delhi Assembly elections with its top leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, suffering unexpected defeats to the BJP.
Arvind Kejriwal, the incumbent CM and a central figure in Delhi politics since 2013, lost his New Delhi constituency to BJP’s Parvesh Verma. Kejriwal had secured this seat by defeating Congress veteran Sheila Dikshit, marking the beginning of AAP’s decade-long governance in the capital. However, in this election, he was unable to retain his seat, signaling a dramatic shift in voter sentiment.
The AAP leader was moved from his original Patparganj seat due to waning popularity, also faced defeat. BJP’s Tarwinder Singh Marwah defeated him by over 600 votes in Jangpura, a constituency he had been re-assigned to after AAP assessed his declining support in Patparganj. In 2020 election, Sisodia’s margin of victory was less than 4,000 votes.
Saurabh Bharadwaj, another prominent leader, lost to BJP’s Shikha Roy by a margin of 3,188 votes in Greater Kailash.
However, Chief Minister Atishi and three AAP cabinet ministers were the saving grace for the party. Gopal Rai, Mukesh Ahlawat and Imran Hussain, who were ministers in the Delhi government, secured victories from Babarpur, Sultanpur Majra, and Ballimaran, respectively.
Hussain won with a margin of 29,823 votes, Rai with 18,994 votes and Ahlawat with a margin of 17,126 votes. Atishi, one of the big faces of the AAP government, won the election from Kalkaji seat by a thin margin of 3,500 votes. She defeated BJP candidate Ramesh Bidhuri.