Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said that “like a bird, for Labour to fly, it needs both a right wing and a left wing.” Arvind Kejriwal took a cue from him—or so it seemed. His Aam Aadmi Party flew for over a decade, with a blend of freebies and soft Hindutva politics. Until a raptor, the Bharatiya Janata Party, finally caught up with it on Saturday. Kejriwal has met his nemesis.
It’s unwise to write any party’s obituary after one election result, but the so-called third alternative in Indian politics is staring at an existential crisis now. It’s only a matter of time before AAP implodes from within—both in Delhi and Punjab. Kejriwal may still like to believe that he is in control of Punjab, but you never know. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann may have different ideas.
That’s the first takeaway from the Delhi election results.
Satisfaction for Congress?
The second is the Congress’ revenge against the AAP. On the face of it, the Congress has little to cheer about—with nil seats and a negligible increase in its vote share. But you can’t fault Rahul Gandhi if he decides to celebrate the result. After all, Congress candidates were instrumental in the defeat of 11 AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, and Saurabh Bharadwaj. Sandeep Dikshit, son of former CM Sheila Dikshit, will surely be happy. Kejriwal had defeated his mother in the New Delhi constituency in 2013 and virtually ended her political career. Sandeep got sweet revenge on Saturday. If it wasn’t for the 4,200-odd votes he chipped away from Kejriwal, the AAP convenor would have romped home. It’s also sweet revenge for the Congress, which lost at least four seats in Haryana due to the AAP.
But for the AAP, the BJP couldn’t have got a majority on its own in Haryana. In 2022 Gujarat assembly election, if the AAP had not chipped away anti-incumbency votes, the Congress could have got 33 more seats and brought down the BJP’s tally from 156 to 123 in the 182-member Assembly.
So yes, the sweet revenge in Delhi should some as a solace for the Congress in Delhi.
With Kejriwal likely under siege in a battle for survival, the Congress can now hope to wrest its traditional vote bank back from the AAP. Besides, there is also a message for the Congress’ partners like Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar, Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh, and MK Stalin in Tamil Nadu—the Congress may not count for much on its own in these states but it still has the potential to cause damage.
Cheer for BJP
There are many other takeaways from Delhi poll results in terms of why voters trust more in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP to deliver freebies, validation of the saam-daam-dand-bhed politics, and so on and so forth. But the biggest takeaway from the Delhi result is for the BJP. It is another sign that the ruling party at the Centre is readying up well for the post-Modi era. The PM remains popular, for sure. His guarantees as against opposition parties’ promises evoke better response from the people. One can’t fault BJP leaders when they attribute the Delhi victory to Modi. After all, ‘Modi ki Guarantee’ was back as the BJP’s main slogan in the national capital, with the PM being the face.
But to call the Delhi election results a verdict on Brand Modi would be simplistic. He remains a brand, for sure, but let’s not judge its value by Delhi poll outcome, which is more about Brand Kejriwal losing its sheen. Modi was virtually the BJP’s face in the previous three Assembly elections, too, including in December 2013 when he, as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, was making waves across the country. Harsh Vardhan was the BJP’s CM candidate in 2013 and Kiran Bedi in 2015, but the party was seeking votes in Modi’s name. The BJP didn’t declare its CM candidate in 2020 and continued to project Modi as its face. Having trounced the Opposition in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Modi was riding a popularity wave during the 2020 Delhi Assembly polls. Unless one argues that he is more popular today than in 2020, looking at Delhi’s result only in the context of Modi’s popularity would amount to ignoring a more significant factor—that is, the BJP gradually and almost unnoticeably stepping out of his shadow.
BJP beyond Modi
The first indication of this came from Haryana and Maharashtra where PM Modi was not the face. He was the face in the Jharkhand Assembly election but that didn’t click for the BJP. That is not to say that Modi is no longer a factor in elections. Of course, he is. He remains a force multiplier for the BJP. But he is not the only swing factor for his party now.
The Delhi election results are another indicator of how the BJP is readying up for the post-Modi phase. He helped the party broaden its social base much beyond its traditional vote bank of upper castes and traders. The party is now showing the capability to retain that expanded base, independent of PM Modi.
In the Lok Sabha election, with Modi as the face, it suffered an erosion in that base—especially, Dalits and backward classes—in many states, including Haryana and Maharashtra, among others. A few months later, in the Assembly elections in these two states, without Modi as the face, it re-acquired and expanded that base.
In fact, the party has shown signs of shedding its dependence on individual leaders in Assembly elections for quite some time now. It didn’t need Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh and Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan to win the Assembly elections. In Madhya Pradesh, it is debatable if the Ladli Behna scheme—with or without Shivraj Singh Chouhan—could have been good enough to catapult the BJP to power.
It’s not only about Brand Modi. The BJP is a thinking political outfit that keeps evolving and changing its tactics and strategies as per requirements, unlike the Congress that remains frozen in time. Look at how the party gave up its objections to revdi culture. If aggressive Hindutva and polarising campaign over Citizenship (Amendment) Act didn’t work in the national capital in the 2020 Assembly poll, the BJP just gave it up in 2025. See how methodically the BJP demolished Brand Kejriwal—his corruption-crusader and aam aadmi image, his welfare politics. It had, in fact, started working on this project two years ago, starting with Sisodia’s arrest.
Delhi election results should come as a reminder to the Congress and other Opposition parties that waiting out for PM Modi to hang up his boots is a self-defeating strategy.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)
You call him brand kejriwal. He should be called fraud kejriwal