By Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari
It is curtains down for Arvind Kejriwal after his defeat and that of his party in the Assembly polls in Delhi. The national convenor of AAP has not only lost power but also the aura and the goodwill that had made him the leader who spoke of an alternative politics in the national capital that made the Aam Aadmi the center of his universe.
A hat trick for Kejriwal would have pitchforked him, dubbed by some as “Chota Modi”, to the national stage as one of the prime opposition contenders against PM Narendra Modi. The reality is that Modi has secured a hat trick of sorts with the BJP’s win in Delhi, after that in Maharashtra and Haryana.
The emergence of Kejriwal some 12-13 years ago on the back of the anti-corruption movement of Anna Hazare during the dying days of the UPA dispensation was virtually a dream come true for the common man. The former IRS officer, who was an IIT graduate, spoke of a different idiom and mesmerised the middle class and students, the marginalised and also women.
Kejriwal, who was defeated today in the New Delhi constituency, was more a run-of-the-mill politician who had been in jail for not exactly the right reasons and the one who, as CM, resided in what his detractors called the “Sheesh Mahal.” The polluted Yamuna also told a different story of the breaking of promises, so also the smog.
The vote bank of the dalits, women, students, and middle class, the rickshaw wallah saw an erosion. The Union Budget 2025-26, which gave a bonanza to the middle class in the form of income tax cuts, could not have helped Kejriwal.
The defeat of a host of AAP leaders, including former Dy CM Manish Sisodia, former Minister Satyender Jain and a number of party MLAs and ministers, including Saurabh Bharadwaj, does not bode well for the party and its supremo.
There have been reasons galore for the AAP debacle. Despite securing a vote share of 43.55 percent and with some results yet to be declared, it will end up with 22 seats, some 40 less than last time. BJP has secured 45.81 percent of the vote and is set to get 48 seats as against eight in the outgoing House in the 70-member Assembly.
Congress, despite failing to get a single seat, campaigned feverishly and helped dent Kejriwal and AAP by securing 6.35 percent votes. Other parties have just become footnotes.
Modi, who led the campaign from the front, did not project the BJP's face after realising that it would intensify factional politics in his party as he had witnessed in the last two elections.
Delhi has hardly been influenced by the politics of caste and religious polarisation. And that is perhaps the reason why its voters vote differently in the Lok Sabha and the assembly, at least since 2014. AAP became the common target of two national parties. Kejriwal relied more on his government's welfare programmes while the BJP played all kinds of tricks, including using Parliament to neutralise a judicial verdict which gave AAP leeway over control of services in Delhi.
The BJP’s aggression in Delhi intensified two years back when despite facing 15 years of anti-incumbency in the MCD, it fought with all its might to retain power. Though Kejriwal succeeded in gaining control of the MCD, the BJP was not far behind in numbers.
Parvesh Singh Verma of the BJP, who defeated Kejriwal from the New Delhi seat, could be a possible CM face. He is the son of Saheb Singh Verma, who was replaced as the CM by Sushma Swaraj before the 1998 elections.
In a parallel development, BJP also won the prestigious Milkipur Assembly bypoll near Ayodhya by defeating the Samajwadi Party by over 60,000 votes.
The defeat of Kejriwal is a wake-up call for the opposition parties to get their act together in the face of a resurgent BJP, which is going out of the way to increase its footprint.
A host of elections are scheduled next year, including that of West Bengal, where Mamata Banerjee is seeking to create a hat trick. Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and BJP-ruled Assam are also scheduled in 2026.
In the Bihar polls, scheduled by the year-end, neither Chief Minister Nitish Kumar nor any other allies of the BJP would be able to make many demands in the changed political situation. At present, it is a win-win for BJP.
(Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari are journalists.)
Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
