‘BJP has system sewn’: KEJRIWALS AAP Loses Delhi When choosing Assembly | Election news

New Delhi, India – Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have astonishingly lost the election in the Delhi assembly in a major reversal in the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is now ready to control the capital again after 27 years.

Twelve years ago the sensational ride to power at the 1993 elections on the back of a popular anti -corruption movement, it was clearly Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, his deputy, had lost their constituencies well before the vote was finished on Saturday.

AAP temporarily locked his party’s headquarters in Lutyens’ Delhi on Saturday afternoon when the celebrations broke out at the nearby BJP offices, decorated in the party’s color of saffron, with party workers dancing and distributing candy. “Development wins, good governance triumphs,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote at X.

Jana Shakti is most important!

Development wins, good governance triumphs.

I bend myself for my dear sisters and brothers to Delhi for this resounding and historical mandate to @BJP4india. We are humble and honored to receive these blessings.

It is our guarantee that we will not leave…

– Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 8, 2025

In the 70-seat assembly in Delhi, the BJP had crossed the majority mark in 35 seats on Saturday afternoon and won more than 48 seats in the afternoon. The AAP number went from the 63 seats it won in the 2020 to 22 seats when the count still continued in the afternoon.

“What once started as a people’s movement was now Fizzled to a purely political party,” Neelanjan Sircar said a senior contact at the Delhi-based Center for Policy Research (CPR), referring to AAP. “Kejriwal may be just a politician now, and when that brilliance goes off, the core voters’ attachment is weakened.”

Delhi, where more than 33 million people live, and the National Capital City, New Delhi, is located is the center of political power in India – and one that has so far been out of the grip of BJP despite its meteoric political increase Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014.

“Delhi is a Mini India, it has a significant population from different regions of the country – and BJP has shown that if they can win Delhi, they can win something,” Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera. “This reversal is significant because this victory is a story of BJP’s micro -management in constituencies. And tell us they are unmatched. “

BJP’s turn to the capital

Modis BJP suffered a humiliating moment in June last year when the Hindu nationalist party lost its parliamentary majority in national elections and was left to rule with the support of regional allies.

Seven months later, BJP has comfortably won three major state elections – Maharashtra, Haryana and Delhi – where it was expected to face a resume opposition, analysts told Al Jazeera, which further cemented its expanding control over the Indian police.

“Since the (national) elections, our party has reached our grassroots workers who have worked hard to ensure that the message of prosperity reaches any voter,” Zafar Islam, BJP’s national spokesman, told Al Jazeera. “This is a defeat of AAP’s arrogance and poor governance.”

While AAP had become known for its welfare programs, BJP doubled down on similar promises in his campaign, which also undertook a Hindu nationalist subtone in Delhi. “Elections in India have become very transactional and the voter will know what they are getting for their voice,” Kidwai said.

Delhi’s voter is also among the most unequal in terms of throwing and class differences, Sircar said. “Unless you get some bits and pieces of all the population at least, it will be difficult to win the election,” he said. A section of so -called “overcast” voters forming nearly 40 percent of Delhi’s population, he added, had flowed to BJP, attracted to promises of subsidies and development, and a desire for change after more than a decade of AAP rule.

In the up to the election, with almost 9.5 million people voting on Wednesday, BJP did not confirm his election for Chief Minister of Delhi, as Kidwai said, worked in the party’s advantage. “There was no disillusionment (about any candidate) among the different role crews or voters from other regions, and the excitement held the scene itself for them and rolled in their favor.”

The Congress Party, India’s oldest party, leading the national opposition, the India Alliance, has remained on the periphery of the assembly for some time and this time could not win a single seat in the election in the Delhi Assembly.

Clearly surprised at the results, Nivedita Menon, a professor of politics at Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), said, “It feels like BJP will never lose a choice again. They have the system sewn tightly. “

‘Message to Kejriwal’

Before the national election last year, Kejriwal was arrested by India’s economic crime agency on corruption taxes. His deputy, Sisodia, has spent 17 months in Tihar prison, Delhi, on charges of money laundering. His trial continues. And their two expressions, secured by landscaping, were destroyed by the continuous tussle with the center-appointed Lieutenant Governor to fight more control over Delhi.

This time it was Kejriwal’s trip to a humiliating moment when his party on Saturday morning lost the Delhi assembly to BJP. AAP had declared the election as a referendum on its governance, and its leader’s innocence in the cases they claim are political vendetta of BJP.

“There was now this fantasy that Kejriwal and AAP also perform politics as usual-and they are not cleaner than other parties,” said Sircar, adding that voters in the middle class seemed “disillusioned with Kejriwal’s tactics and constant confrontation with the central government”.

BJP has won all seven of Delhi’s seats at the last three parliamentary elections, but so far did not have to win voters in the assembly elections, which are held every five years.

“There was strong anti-In-In-buffer (against AAP) after a decade, and it hurt its image among the middle-class voters, resulting in the swing,” Sircar added. “And BJP had an edge in the perception struggle (against) Kejriwal – that he just cries over, or he is a ‘hoax’ and does not appear in governance.”

Kejriwal lost his assembly seat, New Delhi constituency, to BJP’s Parvesh Verma – who has called for a “social boycott” of Muslims – with more than 3,100 votes in the New Delhi election circle. Sisodia, his deputy, also lost the Jangpura election circle in the southeast Delhi to BJP. When the count continued in the evening Saturday, several other popular leaders of the party were afterwards, but had not yet been forced to admit.

“It is a clear message that things were not good for Kejriwal because every political party that has all the heavy weights baking means that there is no way they could come to power,” said analyst Kidwai.

Unclassified territory

On Saturday afternoon, Silence fell over Aap’s party headquarters. Experts say the party now has to focus on picking up the pieces. “It will put them in a difficult place because in Delhi they have been in power since their inception. The party has not been exposed to a time out of power in Delhi, ”said Rahul Verma, a political commentator.

“Their national leaders who lose is an embarrassment and will stifle the expansionist impulse that AAP had a few years ago,” Verma said, referring to the other Indian state elections where AAP has competed, such as Gujrat and Jammu and Kashmir. Currently, Kejriwal’s party is also managing the nearby state of Punjab.

With Kejriwal out of the upcoming assembly, the tables have turned into Delhi policy, experts said. This is uncontrolled territory.

For more than 10 years, BJP has maintained full control of the country’s parliament, located in New Delhi, but always remained in distance from the powers of the state. “BJP now has the same kind of centralization that Modi has run, the so -called ‘Double Engine’ campaign,” Sircar said.

But the saffron party must be cautious, he warned, as Delhi has changed since BJP last won the assembly elections in 1993. “