Delhi emphatically rejected the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday. The results of the state elections saw the Aam Aadmi Party winning a who...
Delhi emphatically rejected the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday. The results of the state elections saw the Aam Aadmi Party winning a whopping 62 out of 70 seats in India’s national capital, leaving the BJP in single digits. From the three seats it won in 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party only managed to bag eight this time, despite a high-octane campaign. Arvind Kejriwal will remain Delhi’s chief minister.
The massive victory for AAP immediately drove many to ask the question: what does this mean for AAP and other parties that have been struggling to take on the Modi juggernaut at the national-level?
There are at least three paths this can take from here.
Federal phenomenon
First, the idea of Delhi emphatically rejecting BJP in 2020 needs context.
The key data point is this: AAP may have won 53% of the vote share in the Assembly elections in 2020, but less than a year ago, the BJP won 56% of the vote share in the state in the Lok Sabha polls.
Normally that would indicate that the BJP had somehow lost a huge amount of its support in under 12 months after the 2019 elections. But actually, it mirrors the events half a decade ago when the BJP...
