Anything is possible in politics and that’s what we are seeing in the country’s capital — Delhi. The Narendra Modi-led BJP is on course to break its 27-year drought, crossing the required 36-seat majority mark in the polls.
With this win, the BJP has trounced Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP, which has been in power for three consecutive years. It first came to power in Delhi in 2013, winning 28 seats, but the government lasted just 49 days. In the 2015 elections, the party won a record 67 seats. In the 2020 polls, the AAP won 62 seats.
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In the run-up to the counting of the polls, the BJP has done all it could to woo the voters. But why? Why does the Capital matter though?
Current trends from the Election Commission show that the
BJP has crossed the majority mark and is all set to wrest the state of Delhi from the decade-long rule of the AAP. This is in line with what the
exit polls had predicted earlier.
As per the trends, the BJP is ahead in 48 seats, with the AAP behind at 22 seats. The Congress has scored a big zero.
This is significant for the BJP; in the 2013 elections, the party had secured 31 seats, falling short of the required majority. However, they couldn’t stake claim to form the government. The following election in 2015, saw the BJP’s tally reduce to just three seats while the AAP scored a huge win with 67 seats.
In 2020, the BJP improved its tally slightly by winning eight seats whereas the Kejriwal-led AAP recorded a 62-seat win.
But what makes Delhi so crucial to the BJP?
The first reason is prestige. The BJP has not been in power in Delhi for the past 27 years. The party was last in power in the Capital from 1993 to 1998. It lost the 1998 Assembly polls to the Congress, with many analysts blaming the high price of onions to be the reason behind the BJP’s loss.
For the BJP, Delhi is about the optics. With Narendra Modi at the helm, the BJP has scored sweeping victories at the national level. It has also been able to win several state elections since 2014. However, Delhi has remained elusive to the BJP.
As Prabhu Chawla writes in the New Indian Express, the
AAP’s consecutive wins in Delhi and the rise of Arvind Kejriwal has not been a good look for the BJP and Narendra Modi.
The BJP is also bothered by the Kejriwal model of politics. The former CM of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal’s popularity has been a hard pill for the BJP to swallow. Kejriwal has also extended his reach beyond just Delhi; his party won the 2022 Assembly elections in Punjab and also secured five seats in Gujarat, considered to be BJP’s stronghold. Within 12 years, Kejriwal has made the AAP one of the five parties that enjoy national status.
Hence, Delhi serves as a crucial battleground for the BJP.
But it’s not just about mere optics that is driving the BJP. The capital, Delhi, attracts the attention of the nation and the world, disproportionate to its size. It is also home to many who migrate from Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and even far-away Bihar. As Delhi is representative of the Hindi heartland, the BJP wants to win these votes, in order to show that it is the true image of the Hindi heartland.
As political pundit, Neerja Chowdhury writes in the Indian Express, “For the BJP, the election is important as Delhi, with its substantial migrant population also fashions the politics of the Hindi heartland. It is here that the BJP has the highest stakes and from where it draws its strength and ability to control the country.”
Some analysts also believe that Delhi is important for the BJP as it will help the party establish its dominance in North India. The BJP is already in power in the states surrounding the national capital, including Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The Delhi election is also important to the BJP as it sets the tone for the other elections, which are to be held across states this year. Sandeep Shastri, political analyst and national coordinator of the Lok Niti Network explained this in a S_outh China Morning Post_ report. He said, “Should the BJP win, it could be a huge morale booster for the party ahead of other state polls, including one due to be held in Bihar towards the end of the year.”
Political watchers also note that the Delhi election is important to the BJP owing to its own performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, where it lost an outright majority. Owing to this, it needs to secure each state election to maintain its leverage over its coalition partners in the government at the Centre.
It’s no wonder then that the BJP has set out to make this a battle of the wills, and if the trends do hold, they will emerge victorious and cause an ‘aap-set’ (read upset) in Delhi.
With inputs from agencies
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