BJP Back In Power In Delhi With A Win As Big As 26-Year Wait, Personal Blow To Kejriwal After 3 Terms
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal accepted defeat with the promise of being proactive as sole Oppn party in Delhi.PM Modi hailed verdict as a win for development.
Call it the result of the Modi government’s last-minute tax bonanza or just voter fatigue with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) scored a decisive win in the 2025 Delhi assembly election on Saturday. With this, the BJP is set to return to power in the capital after nearly 3 decades. To emphasise just how long the BJP has been out of power in Delhi: As of 1998, Narendra Modi hadn’t even become Gujarat chief minister, Rahul Gandhi was still working with a management consultancy firm in London, Arvind Kejriwal was just 3 years into his Indian Revenue Service (IRS) stint (he quit in 2006), and Chief Minister Atishi was yet a minor.
The BJP has won 48 of Delhi’s 70 seats, unseating the AAP after two consecutive stints in office that were both secured by landslide victories (67 seats in 2015 and 62 in 2020).
Former CM and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal accepted defeat with the promise of being proactive as the sole Opposition party in the capital, while Narendra Modi — the face of the BJP campaign in the absence of a CM candidate — hailed the verdict as a win for development. “We are humbled and honoured to receive these blessings,” he said in a post on X.
Notably, the election resulted in a personal defeat for Kejriwal and his former deputy CM Manish Sisodia, both of whom have been accused of irregularities in connection with the alleged Delhi liquor policy scam. While Kejriwal was defeated by the BJP’s Parvesh Verma, a former MP, in New Delhi by just over 4,000 votes, Sisodia lost to the BJP’s Tarvinder Singh Marwah in Jangpura, although the margin was tantalisingly small at 675. This was Sisodia’s maiden election from Jangpura, and he was reportedly shifted here from Patparganj because the AAP saw it as a safe seat.
The vote shares achieved by the AAP and the BJP are not that different, at 43.55% and 45.76%, respectively.
The Big Stories Of This Election
Parvesh Verma’s win from New Delhi — a seat formerly held by former CM Sheila Dikshit — is one of the big stories of the Delhi assembly election 2025. He is believed to be among the chief ministerial frontrunners of the BJP. If he becomes CM, he will be stepping into the shoes of his father, the late former CM Sahib Singh Verma.
Another notable win is that of the BJP’s Mohan Singh Bisht, who won the Muslim-dominated seat of Mustafabad by over 17,500 votes, defeating the AAP’s Adeel Ahmad Khan. The AAP’s Haji Yunus had won the seat with over 53% of the votes in 2020, but was denied a ticket this time.
Among the top AAP leaders who managed to win is CM Atishi, who retained Kalkaji by a margin of 3,500 votes. Her closest competitor was BJP candidate Ramesh Bidhuri, who is known to shoot his mouth off. Atishi had ascended to the CM’s chair when Arvind Kejriwal was jailed in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam.
For the Congress, this was the third election in Delhi where it failed to win a single seat. Its vote share stood at 6.36%.
This assembly election saw all sides make big promises on the welfare front — from cash aid for women (all parties) to free bus travel for students (AAP) and maternity benefits, including paid leave, for domestic workers (BJP).
However, the analysis so far suggests that the deciding factor was the disenchantment of the middle class with the AAP over its failure to deliver on key issues such as pollution, and what is perceived as its stepmotherly treatment vis-a-vis government welfare initiatives. The BJP is believed to have swayed this important bloc with the income tax reform announced in the Union Budget 2025-26, including the complete exemption of incomes up to Rs 12 lakh.
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