BJP workers celebrate after their party’s victory in the Delhi Assembly elections outside the Delhi Pradesh Office in New Delhi on February 8, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
Delhi, not a full state but with a punching ability in politics way above its weight category has yielded yet another poll result that has an all India footprint, both in terms of real politik as well as policy and even in terms of messaging. The Aam Aadmi Party’s defeat and the BJP breaking its over 27-year jinx of holding power in Delhi, thereby restoring the BJP led Modi government’s political authority, eroded after the Lok Sabha polls, is just a small part of this national footprint.
Delhi election results 2025 LIVE
The most important lesson from this result is that freebie politics is here to stay and in fact has now evolved a few of its own characteristics. Free electricity, water, and bus service for women was topped up, by both parties, this election with income support schemes for women. The BJP going to great lengths to assure the public in Delhi that freebies accruing to them under the AAP government will continue. In what seemed like a Freebie Vs Freebie fight, the BJP seemed to have pulled ahead, which reveals two things – one, that the voter is mindful of the track record of delivery of parties promising freebies, the BJP’s record in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra trumped AAP’s failure to deliver in Punjab. Secondly, that freebies alone cannot win you an election, it must be leavened with governance as well. The frequent run-ins between the Lt Governor’s office and chief minister, given the nature of the National Capital Territory Act under which Delhi is government, resulted in a narrative of a government that could not find its way to deliver. Coupled with the fact that Mr Kejriwal, inexplicably refused to resign when arrested and jailed in the excise policy case, seemed to have convinced the voting public that governance was being sacrificed at the altar of scoring political brownie points. Postponement of Cabinet meetings, and a paralysis in governance was the result of that intransigence. The result on Saturday has proved that quitting in March 2024 and claiming the high moral ground would have been a sounder and more ethical move to make.
The other big impact the Delhi results will have will be on oppositional politics. The INDIA bloc’s death knell as a grouping for Assembly polls, has been rung by the Delhi polls, if not heard clearly during the Assembly polls in Haryana. In Delhi, the Congress party effectively helped BJP win many seats, including Muslim dominated Mustafabad, and Mr Kejriwal’s own seat of New Delhi, where Congress’s Sandeep Dikshit’s vote count for more or less the margin with which Mr Kejriwal lost. The first impact of this result will be felt in Punjab, where the Congress is anxious to challenge the AAP government in the state, and now will have no fetters with regard to pre-existing alliances. Assembly polls in Punjab are in 2027.
Arguments that alliances between the Congress and the DMK work well do not stand as it pre-existed the formation of the INDIA bloc. Even the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra is a particular coalition formed in 2019. Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, as well as Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress have thrown in their lot with the AAP against the Congress, during the campaign in Delhi, therefore, the INDIA bloc that fought the Lok Sabha elections is now a thing of the past.
In terms of narrative, the Delhi polls also speak to an important issue – the need to have both ideological and policy engagement with your voter. AAP which came to power on an anti-corruption plank, failed to provide an ideological alternative beyond that point, alienating minorities and other significant part of its support base. Freebies can bring in the votes, but an ideologically engaged base will keep you in the game. For AAP, one of India’s youngest political parties, the hard graft begins now.
Published – February 08, 2025 06:38 pm IST