The Nirvik Bureau, Bhubaneswar, 9 February 2025
The AAP’s resistance to the might of Modi and BJP has finally fallen in Delhi. The AAP and Arvind Kejriwal rose like a phoenix in the 2015 Assembly polls and won 67 out of the 70 seats. Despite the best efforts of the BJP to not let the AAP govern, the latter performed well and did an encore in 2020 with 62 out of 70.
The BJP continued with its dirty tricks and did everything unimaginable to weaken the AAP – including putting the CM and Deputy CM of Delhi behind bars on trumped uo charges with no solid evidence or money trail. The ED and CBI behaved like hand maidens of the BJP quite shamelessly.
The BJP government at the centre became more desperate to not let the AAP govern in Delhi after the AAP’s stupendous win in Punjab. It got scared of the AAP’s improving fortunes and schemed to plot the demise of AAP.
Despite doing everything in his control or out of it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not decimate AAP. The vote share gap is only 4% and margins of victory for most MLAs on either side have been modest. The BJP could finish nowhere near the 67 and 62 seats won by the AAP in the previous two elections. This only proves that the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal are very much there in the hearts of Delhi’s voters.
If the AAP could reinvent itself and go back to its origin of value-based politics, and also adopt an ideological position directly opposite to the BJP’s Hindutwa politics, then there is no reason why it cannot continue to be the fastest growing political party in India.
The INC increased its vote share marginally since 2020 and could not open its account in the Delhi Assembly for the 3rd time in a row (2015, 2020, and 2025). It has to do some very serious introspection. The party actually ended up damaging the winning prospects of a few AAP candidates, especially that of Manish Sisodia.
The clear message from Delhi for all non-BJP and non-NDA parties is to stay united in the I.N.D.I.A bloc to be able to fight the election machine of the BJP.
