Editorial: Saffron Capital

After a 27-year-long hiatus, the BJP has made a stupendous comeback to power, bagging 48 seats in the 70-member Assembly

Once hailed as a middle class hero, Arvind Kejriwal now finds himself abandoned by the same sections which saw him as an anti-corruption crusader representing a new brand of politics. The fall from grace has been quite dramatic as his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) faced a rout in the Delhi Assembly elections after ruling the capital for a decade, a period marked by political turbulence due to frequent confrontations with the Centre. After a 27-year-long hiatus, the BJP has made a stupendous comeback to power, bagging 48 seats in the 70-member Assembly. Hit by an anti-incumbency wave, AAP saw many of its top leaders, including Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, fall by the wayside as the party’s tally has been reduced to 22 from 62 in the previous elections. The Congress, which ruled Delhi until 2013, had to cut a sorry figure, drawing a blank for the third time in a row, despite a high-voltage campaign led by Rahul Gandhi. The Congress’ decline in Delhi began in 2013 when the anti-corruption wave, led by AAP, wiped out its stronghold. Instead of reviewing its strategies and rebuilding a strong local leadership, the grand old party continued to rely on national leaders who failed to connect with the city’s changing voter base. The saffron surge in Delhi, close on the heels of its electoral victories in Haryana and Maharashtra, once again establishes BJP’s dominance in the country’s political landscape and raises troubling questions over the future of the opposition unity.

The Congress’ inconsistent approach to alliances has only complicated matters. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it teamed up with AAP under the I.N.D.I.A bloc, only to contest against it in the Delhi Assembly polls. This move confused voters and divided the anti-BJP vote, benefiting the ruling party. The BJP secured 45.8% of the votes in Delhi while the AAP got 43.8% and the Congress 6.4%. If AAP and the Congress had fought the elections together, the results might have been different. The Delhi mandate holds an important lesson for all parties: Welfare schemes alone cannot win elections. They must be supported by clean and efficient governance. The recent electoral defeats of the YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, and the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha illustrate this point. AAP fashioned the “Delhi Model” of development focused on subsidies, public health and education. While freebies certainly helped AAP in positioning itself as a pro-poor party, its second term was marred by allegations of corruption and poor governance. There was growing frustration over governance issues such as deteriorating infrastructure, pollution, and urban congestion. These factors have created an opening for the BJP, which projected itself as a more competent administrator while highlighting inefficiencies in AAP’s governance and also the advantages of electing a ‘double-engine sarkar’. Its ground-level campaign highlighted civic issues and misgovernance, apart from corruption.

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